Sirocco Sailing Adventures: Friday 25th October 2019 – Kananga to Labuan Haji (Pulau Moyo)

Putu woke me up several times during the night saying she could see small boats moving around in the dark very close to us and they are probably trying to steal something.

As a precaution we had the movement detection alarm on, and everything outside was locked, so rather than get the spotlight out, I thought it best to keep a low profile and just go back to sleep with one eye open.

I like to be able to trust everyone, but a new dinghy or outboard to these very poor people would be so valuable and for some, must be so tempting. And for us, loosing even a small item like a pair of binoculars, mooring line, our anchor or our dinghy or outboard would not only be extremely detrimental to our trip, it could also be life threatening for us, so it pays to be savy.

My biggest concern is our dinghy and outboard. I have the outboard and fuel tank chained to the dinghy and at night, I tether the dinghy to Sirocco with a steel wire. It’s a pain in the arse, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

When the sun came up, I sat out the back in the cockpit sipping my cup of coffee while working on my blog as all the fishing boats started to head out for the day. Every one of them seemed to come past us very close to check us out as I would too.

They all seemed to be super friendly and would wave to me with a huge smile. Some had young kids with them who were waving excitedly.

Foreigners on a sail boat are always viewed as being filthy rich when actually the opposite is usually true. Sailors will take out large loans or sell their house to finance their dreams and they are usually not working with only a finite amount of money in the kitty that has to last them for their entire voyage.

But everywhere you go you are constantly getting asked for money or being charged twice the going rate. Even small kids have the cheek to ask for money. We will often give food to nice people we meet (without them asking) or a discrete little cash payment in a hand shake to those who provide outstanding service or friendship, but we condone the gimme gimme attitude.

I got ready and headed off early in the dinghy to Pulau Satonda, an extinct volcano about two miles away that has a large land locked salt water lake in the middle. Putu wasn’t feeling the best, so she remained behind on Sirocco. Last minute, I threw my portable radio into my bag just in case we needed to contact each other as my phone doesn’t work here in Indonesia.

While it was still early, I decided to hike up high to the rim of the volcano to admire the view of the lake down below. It was bloody hard going and hot sweaty work but along the way I saw lots of beautiful butterflies and the trees were full of noisy fruit bats.

I had almost reached the top of the rim when I get a call on the radio from Putu saying she is getting harassed by young punks wanting money and cigarettes. At first, I thought she could just deal with it and I told her to set off the alarm and wave the machete or spear gun around and I could continue on with what I was doing.

Then I could hear the panic in her voice during her next call when she said one of them had climbed aboard Sirocco. I suddenly turned green and my shirt ripped off as I sped back down the mountain heading for the dinghy anchored in the shallows below.

By now she was hysterical and all sorts of things were racing through my mind. I told her to keep them at bay with the spear gun until I get there as I started the outboard and sped back across the channel dividing Pulau Satonda from Kananga.

The trip back seemed to take forever, but the little white speck of Sirocco gradually got larger and larger until I could see one of the boats close by, so I lined it up in my cross hairs and headed straight for it. At full speed I pretended to run them down turning away right at the last minute only meters away. They were two young kids and I could see the terror in their eyes.

I yelled at them like a crazy man and I’m pretty sure they got the message as they paddled so hard back to the beach you could have water skied behind them.

I then sped back to Sirocco and the other two older offenders had fled by now and here is Putu still holding her hand spear and machete.

Apparently the two older punks had come asking for money and cigarettes and one of them was brash enough to climb aboard to intimidate Putu, but this dickhead sure picked the wrong boat owner. I dread coming home late at night pissed, little alone asking for money or trying to rob her, my god what was that wanker thinking?

This little twat was so poor, yet he still had managed to scrape up enough funds to put blond tips in his hair. Just as well they took off as I would have strangled the little shit and hacked both hands off.

By now I had had enough of Kananga and being on edge the whole time, so I immediately pulled anchor and we headed across to Pulau Satonda without even stepping ashore.

At Pulau Satonda, I dropped the anchor in several meters of crystal-clear water just opposite the jetty and we headed ashore in the tender.

At the beach we met a nice old man and a young Balinese guy who were the Islands caretakers and we chatted with them for quite some time.

The Island was once a big tourist attraction, but because over the years they had increased the entry fees to a ridiculous amount and coral bleaching had occurred, cruisers have been bypassing the place and local tourists have stopped coming and the place has really fallen into disrepair.

We talked about the incident we just had with the young punks wanting cash and cigarettes and the old man said he was disappointed to hear this and he was going to speak to the village leaders to try and find out who the offenders were and to have them punished.

After a while, we headed off and walked along the concrete path leading up the hill to the lake. The lake was an impressive sight but the high salinity water was green and a bit cloudy and wasn’t as inviting as the crystal-clear ocean, so we never bothered going in for a swim.

At the edge of the lake were a couple of kalibuda trees that are sacred to the local people who believe hanging a rock on the tree will give you good luck, and as I like good luck, I hung a huge rock that later probably up rooted the tree shortly after we left. Apparently, the sap from this tree is highly toxic which would be bad luck if you got it in your eyes.

After lake piss weak, I went back out to Sirocco and got a heap of cup noodles for the caretakers who were very grateful and then we pulled anchor and headed off to Labuan Haji on Pulau Moyo arriving at 16:15.

We anchored out front of a small guest house and then headed ashore in the dinghy. The village and the beach were surprisingly very clean and we headed up the beach to the small guest house we could see (from the boat) to inquire about hiring a motorbike tomorrow so we can go and checkout some waterfalls I had heard about.

The owner was a nice French man with his princess Indonesian wife and we talked for a couple of hours over a few beers, organised the motorbike for tomorrow then we went for a walk to the other side of town to find a warung (a small family-owned restaurant) to have a feed of local tucker before heading off back out to Sirocco.