Careful what you wish for...

After many days of sun and a busted water maker, we kept hoping for some solid rain and were glad when it finally arrived. We happily traded a gloomy, wet day for not having to buy and lug water jugs to the boat. The rain filled both our water tanks, all our 5-gallon buckets, and all our water jugs, as well as anything else that would hold water. But it kept coming and coming. And on day 2, it was still coming. By day 3, the day that we were scheduled to leave Tello, the downpours were so heavy we didn't even venture out from the boat for most of the day. 

Sorry I blew up

I'm pretty sure that's what the volcano Anak Krakatau would say if it could talk. As we made our way south towards the Sunda Straight and Krakatau, we had heard that it was erupting. A quick check on the internet showed it was a '4' (out of 5), and that a 2 kilometer exclusion zone had been established.  That meant that we wouldn't be able to actually land on the island. We also knew that volcanic ash is nasty stuff to get on the boat. We decided to visit anyway because the prevailing winds should have kept the ash off our boat and even if we couldn't get on the island, the sights would hopefully be worth it.

Belitung to Java

We haven't seen an overpass like this since Bali

We are heading to Krakatau and one of our rest stops (near Pulau Merak Kecil) was also our first visit to the island of Java, where most of Indonesia lives. One cruiser that we met before we came to Indonesia, told us their opinion that all Indonesians are lovely people, except people from Java (I'll leave out the colorful details of how he thought they should be treated).

Belitung

Belitung resembles Virgin Gorda, with its gigantic granite boulders and white sand beaches. The area near the anchorage is busy with construction of new sewers, sidewalks, and an update to the central plaza. The Indonesia rally is also here, so there are plenty of other cruising boats (not to mention the constant stream of local tour boats that ferry people to the various islets and clusters of rocks).

Waiting for the other shoe to drop...

Bananas!

Conrad's latest obsession is 3D modeling and he could easily spend all day on the computer. This has us all vying for computer time on our sole laptop (we have another one that we keep as a spare). That time has become even more precious with the recent demise of our battery charger.

Safe but sad

We missed the earthquakes and tsunami in Donggala and Palu by about five days. We had already moved on to Kumai when we heard the news. Although the resort area where we were moored escaped with relatively minor damage, the surrounding areas were devastated. It is awful to see images of the destruction and to read about the deaths.

We are currently in Belitung, having covered many miles since Donggala. Updates coming...

Indonesia: Land of Friendly Folks and Official Officialdom

Mark riding with one of our guides, Bang Rhul'Badrul.

We enjoyed the couple of months we spent on the Sail to Malaysia rally but by the end were ready to get back to our own schedule (or lack thereof) and a more relaxed calendar. We were able to do and see things with the rally that we would not otherwise, but the pace was a bit exhausting for us.