Indonesia
Saturday, August 16, 2014 – Ujung Kulon, Indonesia
It ended up being a pretty squally night at Krakatau, but it actually kind of added to themystique of the place. We knew we must have picked a good anchorage spot because all night long fishing boats would come in to seek refuge. One boat anchored literally about 50 feet away from us, but fortunately (for us) his anchor drug and he quickly found himself way behind us. By morning the rain (and the fishing boats) had cleared out, so we did a quick circumnavigation of Anak Krakatau with the boat, choked on its steamy sulfuric gasses for a few minutes and headed towards Ujung Kulon.
We had to motor the 40 something miles to get there, but what an awesome feeling it was to pull into the beautifully protected bay and anchor off the white sand beaches and turquoise waters of the small island called PulauPeucang. This was one of the places on this route that I was really excited to see and as an added bonus Shango was still here. The only bad thing was that we heard from Bill that just after he had officially checked out of Malaysia he learned of an issue back home that would potentially delay him another 3-5 days. We had really hoped to meet up with him here, but with this most recent delay it looks like it will be in Cocos Keeling instead.
Ujung Kulon, besides being a really beautiful place to rest up and make final preparations for the Indian Ocean, is Indonesia’s oldest National Park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has one of the largest remaining areas of rainforest in Indonesia (the largest on Java) and it is home to a host of rare plants, mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles. The park has 30 species of protected mammals alone. Three of which, the javan leopard, javan gibbon, and javan leaf monkey, are endangered and one species, the Javan Rhinoceros, is critically endangered. Ujung Kulon is believed to sustain the last natural population of Javan Rhinos on earth and recent surveys of the park have estimated that there are between 40 -60 rhinos left. Due to the sheer size of the park and the reclusive nature of the rhinos, sightings are very rare.
Ironically, the Krakatau eruption of 1883 is somewhat credited for the creation of the Ujung Kulon National Park because the associated tidal waves wiped out all of the coastal village in the area and the ensuing ash fall forced the human evacuation of the entire peninsula. Most of the survivors resettled further east near Jakarta.
So for the past several days we have been working on a few boat projects and doing a bit of hiking. We did a hike to the other side of Pulau Peucang which had some of the most amazing trees I have ever seen and we did a hike through the rain forest across the Ujung Kulon peninsula and got our first view of the Indian Ocean. One of the things that I have enjoyed the most here has been simply relaxing in the cockpit watching the deer, monkeys, wild boar and monitor lizards roam the beach, the sea eagles hunt for fish, and the great hornbills fly back and forth between the mainland and the island. Ujung Kulon has certainly lived up to the hype, even if we didn’t get to see a Javan rhinoceros.
So we got another call from Bill letting us know that due to his most recent delay and because other boats that he had hoped to travel south with had already left, he has decided to stay in South East Asia for another season and then take the northern route to South Africa early next year. His decision hit us really hard as it puts him a full year behind us and makes it doubtful that Solstice and Hokule’a will be able to reconnect again before returning to California. One of the main driving forces behind starting this trip in 2011 was being able to share the experiences of sailing around the world with Bill and Solstice. The news was incredibly disappointing, but we certainly understand and support his decision as sailing the southern route as a single hander would be a lot harder than the northern route especially without any boats to travel with on the first several legs.
We also got news that there was a rare (for this time of year) period of moderate trade winds between Indonesia and Cocos Keeling over the next several days, so we have decided to take advantage of that window and will be leaving Ujung Kulon tomorrow along with Shango and Kite. Jackie and I are both excited and a little nervous about the Indian Ocean crossing, but we are really looking forward to getting back out in the ocean again after nearly a year in the protected waters of Southeast Asia. We will see how long that feeling lasts…..
Tuesday, August 12, 2014 – Krakatau, Indonesia
In the span of a few hours we had left Raffles Marina, crossed the extremely busy Singapore shipping lanes, and anchored off of the beautiful Indonesian island of Pulau Kepala Jerih. What a shocking transition and it felt so amazing to be at anchor again after nearly 4 months of being in marinas. Free at last. Obviously with that freedom comes the loss of a few things such as the ease of getting provisions, free flowing water out of a hose, and not having to worry about the weather, but that feeling of freedom is always worth it. Just after sunset we watched numerous displays of fireworks on the surrounding islands as Indonesia celebrated the end of Ramadan.
From there we did day hops with our friends on Kite down to the islands of Gelang and Kentar. We were very happy to have done the trip to Kentar during the day as we wove our way through numerous floating and fixed fishing platforms. We crossed the equator on July 31st and then did two overnighters to the islands of Banka and Belitung. We took our time and spent an extra couple of days relaxing, waiting for better weather and giving Bill on Solstice a chance to catch up. Getting to Belitung from Singapore was a big milestone as the trip consists of 350 nautical miles of motoring straight into the trade winds. From Belitung onwards our course is southwesterly which brings the promise of being able to sail once again. Sailing opportunities have been few and far between since we first arrived in Singapore back in November. We have had to put a lot of hours on the engine in this part Southeast Asia especially with two trips through the Malacca Strait. Needless to say we were very happy to be in Belitung and looked forward to giving the engine a well-deserved rest.
We had visited Belitung last year on our way up from Australia and really enjoyed it. The difference now was that we didn’t have the Sail Indonesia Rally to help us with all of the bureaucracy, paperwork, and language barriers associated with clearing into the country. Fortunately we had heard from a few other boats about a guy named Harun who was willing to help out cruisers in Belitung. “Help out” was truly an understatement, as Harun not only arranged for an agent to take care of our clear in, but he also arranged for anything and everything that we needed such as diesel, gas, motor oil, scuba tank fills, laundry, trips to the markets, bank and hardware store, sim cards for phone and internet, etc, etc, etc.…. If you are planning to visit Belitung you can contact Harun at harun_cahyadi@me.com. He is a truly a wonderful person and incredibly helpful. We hung out in Belitung for five days, running errands at a relaxed pace , enjoying great Indonesian food, and watching the fleet of jelly fish fishermen come out every morning to scoop up their catch. Still not sure what they do with all those jellyfish, but I would guess that somebody somewhere must like eating them. Speaking of eating, Belitung was our last opportunity to really stock up on fresh foods as it would be 2-3 weeks before we got to Cocos Keeling (not really sure if we can get much fresh stuff there) and probably 6-7 weeks to Rodrigues. So Hokule’a loaded up with fruits and veggies.
Before leaving Belitung we heard from Bill that Solstice was ship shape and that he would be checking out of Malaysia and starting to head our way over the weekend. This was great news. We also heard from Shango that they had made it to Ujung Kulon (our planned jumping off point for Cocos Keeling) and would probably still be there when we arrived in a several days. So Kite and Hokule’a left Belitung on August 9th and did a day hop down to Seliu Island just off the south coast of Belitung and from there had a wonderful overnight sail (yep I said sail) to a small anchorage called Kali on the island of Java west of Jakarta. It was very industrial little harbor but it provided great protection and would allow us to go through the Sunda Strait during the day and make landfall at Krakatau (probably better known as Krakatoa) in the afternoon.
Krakatau, the Indonesia name for Krakatoa, today is a group of volcanic islands that are the remnants of the original volcano Krakatau. In the center of these “remnants” is a relatively new volcano called Anak Krakatau, meaning son of Krakatau. Anak Krakatau rose out of the water in 1927 and has actively been growing at a rate of 15-20 feet per year. The original eruption of Krakatau in 1883 is considered one of the most violent volcanic eruptions in recorded history. The explosion was heard far as 3000 miles away in Mauritius and it ejected over 5 cubic miles of rock, pumice and ash. Estimates are that over 36,000 people were killed as a result of the eruption and that thousands more worldwide died from the massive tsunamis that followed the explosion.
We arrived at Krakatau in the early afternoon and actually anchored in the caldera of the former volcano just off the island of East Krakatau. It was pretty surreal to be anchored so close to Anak Krakatau, sitting in the cockpit watching it smoke and smolder, and wondering if at any moment it was going to erupt. Unfortunately our attention was diverted from the volcano for a while when we noticed that a very scary looking waterspout was heading our way. Fortunately it dissipated before getting too close.
Tomorrow we do a day hop to our last stop in Indonesia before jumping out into the Indian Ocean. The best thing is that Jackie has not had a single problem with vertigo since we left Singapore and we have had a few bumpy trips along the way. She is still trying to sleep upright and every day she is getting more optimistic that this won’t be a problem in the Indian Ocean.