Sailing Henrietta the Unreliable Journal of a Sailing Boat …..All at Sea and Where We Might Be

06/11/2018, 1348 Page 1 of 1

Sailing Henrietta The unreliable journal of a sailing boat …..All at sea and where we might be

Home Site Crew Where we are The Boat The Name Speciﬁcations

← Southeast Sulawesi Bali to Bawean → Older Posts Kalimantan to Belitung 18 Nusa Tenggara October 2018 Bali to Bawean 15 October Posted on 22 September 2018 2018 Nusa Tenggara 22 Sep- Flores, Sumbawa, Komodo, Lombok tember 2018 Southeast Sulawesi 4 Sep- 1st to 18th September tember 2018 Central Molucca 11 August 2018 Nusa Tenggara (Southeast Islands) forms part of the lesser Sunda Islands. It’s one of the Indonesia – SE Mollucca 6 world’s most geologically active areas, the recent Lombok earthquake and backdrop of August 2018 Australia 16 July 2018 volcanos a reminder of that. Chesterfield Reef 26 June 2018 New Caledonia 7 June 2018 Vanuatu 17 May 2018 New Zealand – last phase 30 April 2018 New Zealand – end of sum- mer 12 April 2018 New Zealand 3 12 March 2018 New Zealand 2 3 February 2018 New Zealand – Northland 16 December 2017 Tonga to New Zealand 11 No- vember 2017 Tonga, Ha’apai 24 October 2017 Tonga, Vava’u 7 October 2017 Suwarrow, Cook Islands 25 We sailed from east to west. Winds have been fickle, much affected by the high volcanic September 2017 islands and high temperatures, and there’ve been many hours motoring and a day or two Society Islands 2 September of very strong headwinds and choppy sea. 2017 Moorea 19 August 2017 Tahiti 31 July 2017 Follow Tuamotus 15 July 2017 Gambier Islands 23 June 2017 Pacific Ocean 10 June 2017 Panama Canal 2 May 2017 San Blas Islands to Colon 28 April 2017 San Blas Islands 25 April 2017 Waiting in Panama 11 April 2017 Bonaire to Panama 5 April 2017 Martinique and Bonaire 22 March 2017 Vegetarian at Sea 13 March 2017 Atlantic Crossing 2017 22 February 2017 Flores (you may not have heard of it but it’s about 200 miles long, thus dwarfing its Azores La Palma, La Gomera 26 namesake at the western extreme of Europe), has some low key tourism – tourists begin to January 2017 Western Canary Islands 16 burst the seams of Bali and now spread eastwards, chiefly to Lombok and Komodo January 2017 National Park but also to Sumbawa and Flores. Some Canary Islands 23 De- cember 2016 Madeira 4 December 2016 Porto Santo 20 November 2016 Portugal – 2016 1 November 2016 Leaving England – Oct 2016 11 October 2016 Still in England – July, Au- gust, September 9 Sep- tember 2016 England 5 July 2016 Azores to England 19 June 2016 Azores 6 June 2016 Bermuda to Azores 24 May 2016 North to Bermuda 5 May 2016 Some Virgin Islands 22 April 2016 North from Dominica 9 April 2016 9th April 9 April 2016 North from Martinique 24 March 2016 North from Trinidad 15 March 2016 Trinidad 29 February 2016 Some Windward Islands 21 February 2016 South from Antigua 10 Feb- ruary 2016 Some Leeward Islands 27 January 2016 With friends from a fellow Najad yacht, we enjoyed a long day out in the Flores Atlantic Crossing 6 January countryside, our driver, Hans, friendly and very helpful in finding us culture, hot springs, 2016 traditional Ngada villages, mountainside stops, fruit market and boxes of beer. Here are Cape Verde 18 December 2015 some photos. …On to Cape Verde 13 De- cember 2015 Still here in La Gomera 30 November 2015 Waiting in La Gomera 24 November 2015 Two more Canary Islands 13 November 2015 South to a Canary Island 3 November 2015 Portugal – going backwards! 19 October 2015 Still in Portugal 14 October 2015 ….and Portugal….early Octo- ber 6 October 2015 ….on to Spain – late Sep- tember 25 September 2015 Leaving England – Sep- tember 2015 12 September 2015 Setting forth – August 2015 1 September 2015 Ashore for a spell 26 August 2015 Learning how it all works 8 August 2015 A New Boat 8 June 2015

Categories 2015 England to Cape Verde Older Posts

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We potter along the northern coast of Flores, anchoring in empty spots, as we’ve done elsewhere, often off little islets where we may snorkel, privileged to enjoy the beauty and colourful diversity of coral life.

Komodo National Park comprises a few islands at the western end of Flores. It includes several endemic species, the best-known being the Komodo dragon. Weighing in at up to three metres and 90 kg it’s the world’s biggest lizard.

Considering it’s a pretty vile beast, a carnivore that may even eat its own young, and poops white faeces coloured by the bones of its victims etc, it attracts a lot of tourists. Our anchorage off the island of Rinca, home to most of the dragons, is busy all day as hundreds of foreign and Indonesian visitors flock ashore. By evening it’s quiet and calm, just a handful of us visiting yachts watching the monkeys and birds along the shoreline.

Next morning our ranger guide, I think named Primus, takes us on the ‘long’ two hour walk in search of these fascinating but loathsome dragons. He carries a forked stick for dragon defence purposes, and it doesn’t take long to find one – possibly lurking up on a harmless and gentle water buffalo (which it chooses to leave alone). Enough…a few photos….

There’s little time in the rally programme for lingering, and we opt to catch up a bit by sailing overnight along most of Sumbawa’s northern coastline, reaching Pulau Moyo and, next day, the small town of Badas. The annual festival, Moyo Tambora, is underway and we join many friends and hundreds of Indonesians for typically generous friendly helpful welcome, and tantalising glimpses of local culture.

Next stop heading west is the island of Lombok, first night anchored beneath the imposing sight of Mount Rinjani, a semi-active volcano (its summit about 3,700 metres); and next night the anchorage in the northwest, Medana Bay, its ‘Marina’ just two stubs of wobbly pontoon (but shower, helpfulness, bar/restaurant, et al. a real treat.

The recent earthquake was centred near this corner of Lombok, and the damage is widespread. Indonesians have many years’ experience of natural disasters, and cleaning up and rebuilding have started, though it will be a long time before the rubble and cracks are cleared, let alone the human pain. Kimi and Trevor, energetic youthful Americans from the rally, have instigated a project to build a new schoolroom, so many of us spend a few hours or days shovelling rubble, shifting earth and assembling the bamboo frame that will form the basis of the new structure.

Despite the trauma of earthquake, there’s a memorable happy afternoon when we eat with local villagers, who have prepared baskets and trays of food, and afterwards enjoy wonderful drum music and dancing; the colourful diversity of local music and dance endlessly fascinating……..

Additional crew joined us in Lombok, so now we have the warm wise helpful good-natured Irish Anne with us too: ‘Three women on a boat‘ (Henrietta) adds a new dimension to my more usual solo sailing life. (The book may follow in due course…but probably not)

Off we all sail to three popular tourist islands off this bit of Lombok, first stop at the most popular, Gili Trawangan. It would normally be crowded with party-focussed backpackers and holidaymakers, “The Indonesian Ibiza” according to Cruising Guide. But earthquake damage here was severe so it’s quiet, bars and restaurants largely empty or destroyed, and just a relative handful of tourist visitors cycling and snorkelling.

Mooring buoys dragged off Trawangan so we anchored in strongish currents, and it was an uncomfortable night; we left early next day for Bali…..