Bau Bau to Selayar, Sulawesi

Typical Indonesian fishing boat

Full Moon over Benteng Harbour, Selayer, Indonesia

Another garbage strewn beach

Chaos in the school yard!

Bau Bau to Selayar, Sulawesi

Oct 28 2015

We had a great sail Mon to Tues to another island group that is to the south of the larger island of Sulawesi. It was super to have the autopilot back working. With good wind, even though we still arrived last, we are not far behind. Two boats have joined our group having sailed from the Philippines with a rally Luc  organised in Aug. They are from Australia and Switzerland.

We are getting a sense of the huge size of Indonesia, beyond just a number of miles. The whole country is islands, about 13,000 of them. The distance from southeast to northwest is equivalent to the border between the US and Canada. The anchorage here is not listed in either of the guide books we have, as there are too many places to cover. We have electronic charts that are invaluable, but they have not been too accurate. At night, especially, we need to use the radar to confirm where land is and wait for light to approach. The time zone is +8 UTC which puts us about halfway around the world from the Caribbean. We know that we are approaching the equator as the temperature continues to rise. It is particularly stifling on the boat when the wind isn't blowing.

On Tues, besides the boat chores we all had naps and then spent a few hours walking around town and the seafront. Today, Wed, we had a short bus tour around the town of Benteng. Compared to tours we have taken in other places it has been inexpensive,  usually about 20 to 25 dollars which includes the lunch. We are anchored in the commercial harbour with lots of boat traffic. It is a smaller place than the last two towns, with less services, but a bit cleaner. We stopped at the library, and at the main admin buildings and prison, that are joined by a tunnel. These old buildings are Dutch in architecture from the Dutch East Indies days. We also stopped at an elementary school for a brief, chaotic visit. I hope their teachers can salvage some lessons from the visit. Mostly they wanted us to autograph their notebooks. It was a chance to feel like a celebrity again.

After a traditional lunch we visited someone's home for a selection of desserts and coconut drinks. Most homes are built on stilts which I thought was because of flooding. But the main reason is to keep out animals as the homes are all open for the breeze. We also had a brief market and souvenir stop. Many things are common from the previous places. The calls to prayer over the loud speakers, motorbikes and garbage crowding the roads, several power failures a day, smoking but no alcohol, lots of junk food, lots of cell phones but also many smiling faces.

We have had to make a small change in itinerary-a disappointing one. There are raging fires in Kalimantan (Borneo) that have been going on for weeks. It is getting so severe that they are doing evacuations and turning away visitors. This is the place we were to see the Orang-utans, and they are in danger. They are trying to rescue the ones they can. But for the fires they are just praying for the rains that usually come by now. We will be adding a day to the Lombok visit, and to Belitung instead. We will leave here for Komodo on Sat.