CHANGES Sailing Club went out of its way to assist us with everything from bus schedules to information about where to find what in Darwin. The provisioning in Darwin was great. I can’t stress enough how how very important provisioning is before sailing on to Indonesia. During our first six weeks there, we found very little to supplement our provisions. The Indonesians must not eat much meat, John — we think it's as it was terribly John — bangs the lip hard to find any. off Nemberala Resort. The only chickens we saw were alive — although people readily offered to kill them for us. This, of course, took us some getting used to. Where was Costco when we needed it? I've always provisioned extensively, and this is one time that it really paid off. Sail Indonesia had two courses, one to Kupang and the other to Banda. We went to Kupang and had an uneventful passage of three days. The officials in Kupang were ready for us, and the organization, once again, was terrific. A mass check-in/check-out was held, and all seemed to go well. From there, the rally once again offered different routes, and we chose to go to the island of Roti. This is where the rally started to go downhill. It soon became all too apparent that the rally stops hadn't been chosen because they had good anchorages, but rather because of what the town had apparently offered the organizers in return for bringing the fleet to them. The town of Baa, for instance, expected 100 boats, yet only 10 showed up. The anchorage
SCARLETT O'HARA
When Renee went to the open-air markets in Indonesia, you could almost hear her cry, "Where's the beef? Where's the beef?"
was very poor, and couldn’t have held more than 10 boats anyway. We spent two unpleasant nights there before we bailed out and went to the southern part of Roti — where we found a most incredible anchorage off the Nemberala Beach Resort. What a great place! It sits on a prime piece of beachfront overlooking the famous surf break of the same name. We met surfers from all over the world who had come just for the fabulous surf. The bar was stocked with cold — for once — beer, the owners were friendly, and the atmosphere was great. There is not much in the way of cruising guides for Indonesia. We had a hardbound copy of Southeast Asia Cruising Guide, Volume II II, but it was just a very general guide to a huge area of ocean dotted with countless islands. Based on the rave reviews of the rally staff, we, like many others, also purchased a copy of 101 Anchorages Within the Indonesian Archipelago that organizers had been flogging. Unfortunately, it would seem that the author must not have been a sailor, and worse, had obviously never been to some of the so-called anchorages. A lot of our cruising friends had similar experiences with the other places the 101 guide sent them. As a result, we’d make a passage to what was supposed to be a great anchorage, only to find the bottom was either covered in coral or so deep that anchoring was all but impossible. The only option was to continue on through the night — which is downright dangerous in Indonesian waters because of unlit fishing boats, and fishing boats illuminated with strange lights, as well as large floating bamboo structures that rarely showed up on radar. We eventually hit one such bamboo structure, but luckily suffered no major damage to our boat. We also found that the 101 book had many errors, such as listing the same GPS coordinates for more than one anchorage, claiming sandy bottoms where there was coral, and so forth. Despite this, we used the guide, as we had nothing else to go by. By the third rally stop, most of the fleet was upset about the terrible places that had been chosen for stops. On the other hand, most enjoyed the festivities ashore, for the towns that hosted rally stops really went out of their way to entertain and feed us. But
it was sad, because most of the towns were dirty, the people very poor, and supplies extremely limited. So despite having put up money and having made a big effort to attract future tourists, they aren't going to get them. Given the poor anchoring conditions, even sailors won't be returning. We felt as though towns got gypped by the organizers. It wasn’t until we got to the Lombok/ Bali area that we finally found things like meat and chicken breasts. Don’t laugh, eating is important out here! Given the previous anchorages, the one at Lovina Beach, Bali, was surprisingly good. The locals were very helpful, too, as they ran down diesel, gas, water, and anything else we needed. And the shopping in the nearby large city was very good. Unfortunately, this is also where — in our view — the rally simply fell apart. The organizers and Indonesian representatives had promised many participants that their visas would be renewed promptly — for a fee, of course. And that these visa renewals would be ready when they arrived in Lovina. But they were not ready. Many boatowners didn’t get their renewals until the end of our time in Bali, at which point we got the news that our