I got up early this morning and after a nice feed of bacon, I topped up the starboard engine oil and checked and tightened all the V-belts before we headed off on the 30 nm (5 hour) passage to Wera.
Today both engines worked perfect and the passage was uneventful, but we had sloppy conditions all day with a strong head wind right on the nose once again arriving at Wera around 15:30, dropping the anchor out front of the town jetty.
Once we got the boat sorted out, we headed ashore to look at the traditional boat building taking place on the beach. I was here a couple of years ago, but though it was a good opportunity for Luke to see the interesting work they do here.
I walked up to one of the large boats being built on the beach and right away I started up a conversation with a young guy who spoke good English and he invited me to come aboard and have a close look around.
It was his brother’s new cargo boat that was to be launched next week
and it was getting the final touches done to it before the launch. These boats
are all held together with wooden dowels and are built mostly by hand in the traditional
manor from timber sourced from Sulawesi.
This guy surprised me when he started telling me several years ago people from the middle east came to his village and demanded all vessels currently being built were to be used for people smuggling to Australia and they demanded more boats were to be built and money was not an issue.
After showing us several other boats, he then took us for a long walk all around his village. The whole time we had a huge group of shy kids following us and it was quite entertaining. The village was actually two separate villages and a lot larger than I first thought. Both villages were very clean and the people were friendly.
The beach front was disgusting with rubbish everywhere, but the main street and all the houses were quite neat and it was obvious the people here were very poor. As it was Ramadan, everyone was fasting and we had to wait until the sun had set before we could eat & drink, so we sat in a small bakso warung and chatted while the owner snapped many photos of us for advertising their warung.
After eating, we wandered all the way back to the beach where we left the dinghy hours ago and I was relieved to see it was still where I left it. We thanked this guy for such great hospitality and as well as buying him his dinner, I slipped him a token of appreciation in a hand shake. He was a little offended and I told him to buy his parents some food or donate it to the mosque and he said he will share it with his friends.
It was a cool night but a very rolly anchorage and the chanting over
the loud speakers from all the mosques seemed to go on all night, but we both
slept well.
A good read Craig. You certainly had some testing times.
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