I got up at 05:00 and we were underway at 06:30. We had 24 hours to leave Indonesia, but I wanted to get out of here in a hurry just in case there was an overstay issue, and just to be sure I put my AIS into stealth mode.
In very calm weather we headed off to Ba'a on Rote Island 47nm
away and we arrived there at 14:45, 8.15 hours later. During the passage I got
all my documentation ready for clearing into Australia and I also sorted out my
first aid kit and documentation ready for inspection.
Along the way, we were passed by a high-speed ferry twice that
does the Kupang to Ba'a run each day in only four hours. There is also a fifteen-minute
flight from Ba'a to Kupang each day as well. Ba'a is the capital of Rote and is
a very small and sleepy town and I hope we don't get into trouble for going
ashore for some dinner tonight as technically now that we have checked out of
Indonesia, we are not meant to go ashore.
We went for a nice long walk around town to get a feel for the
vibe. The people were all very friendly, but not fanatical about getting
selfies with us or calling out "hello mister" as everywhere else we
have been. I was starting to think I was losing my Mojo. Ba'a is a nice small
town and is the business capital of Rote Island and Rote is the closest
Indonesian Island to Australia.
They were a great couple and we stayed and had dinner with them in a small Rote bar/restaurant and we chatted with them till late. For dinner we had nasi goreng with the famous Rote smoked beef which we also saw on offer back in Kupang.
It was delicious and tasted a little bit like smoked bacon.
Later, during the walk back to the dinghy we came across a little excitement in
the street. An extremely happy fisherman had just caught a 100kg sailfish and many people were gathered around him looking at the enormous fish and
taking photos of it.
What’s better than getting your photo taken with a 100kg sailfish you have just caught? Getting your photo taken with a 100kg sailfish and a couple of bule. He was so excited; he was dancing around like a little
kid on Christmas day.
Luke just had to buy some betel nut to try
While there, one of the men surprised us by speaking in English,
asking us where were we from? I said we were heading to Darwin and he said he
has been to Darwin and he proceeded to tell us about himself.
It turns out he was the captain of a people smuggling boat and he spent 12 months in a Darwin jail and 18 months in an Alice Springs jail. He was laughing and happy to talk about it. I would have loved to ask him more questions, but I didn’t want to steal the moment from the happy fisherman, so we let it go and headed back to our dinghy and headed back out to Sirocco.
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