As we left Debut in the Kei Islands, Indonesia…. we decided to do a daysail (40 miles away) and headed for a small island named Walir on our way to Banda Islands to cut the passage to just 1 overnight. We left the Debut anchorage at about 6:30 am….by 6:38 I hit a reef…HARD….Now we are awake! We literally had to reverse back over the reef to get back to our chartplotter track, the way we got into the anchorage. To add….at about 7:30 am we also ran into about 20-30 nets all with black buoys while we were rounding another small island….It was so nerve-racking that by the time we got out into open water at 9 am…I was ready for a drink.
A photo of our tracks in and out of Debut anchorage: To my defense….lol…driving while asian…. I was trying to give the little island you see there plenty of room as generally there are surrounding reefs around the islands…this time the reefs was closer to the main land. Nothing on the charts or Google images helped us to see the reef. The only thing that could have helped us was the sunlight but leaving so early, that was not in the cards for us. Additionally, we were not the only ones to hit this reef… we heard over the VHF radio another boat needed dinghies to help pull them off the same reef. Not happy they ran aground but relieved that I wasn’t the only one : )When we got to Walir Island, there were lots of other rally boats there (14). We jumped in the water to take a look at the possible damage to our hull. Trevor said it is minimal and the scratches can be re-painted when we get hauled out again…whenever that will be?!
The next morning we headed out for Banda, a 140 mile passage. The passage was uneventful (thank goodness) and we flew wing on wing in 15 knots almost directly downwind sailing.
Photo courtesy of SV Escape Velocity who screamed by us in their 42 foot catamaran.Sailing downwind means the swell comes from behind us and we surf up and down waves. We had 1-2 meter swell for this passage. Here is a view of a wave that just came from behind…
When we arrived to Banda we decided to try to anchor inside the deep bay in front of the village first before we would try to anchor where the rally waypoint said to anchor around coral reefs. When we were rounding the corner to the bay we sighted Craig from SV Il Sogno racing to us in his dinghy.
He said there was plenty of room on the “dock” just in front of town, but we would have to med moor. We have never done this before and we were unprepared and had no idea what to expect. With the help of Craig in the dinghy to help us reverse semi-straight and folks on land to help us tie our boat up to trees from aft…we successfully med moored in Banda island.
Craig in the dinghy handing our 200 foot aft line to a guy on shoreGuy on shore running to get the line tied around a tree while Trevor runs up to manage the chain and make sure we had enough scope to get us to the wharf wall. We had to drop our anchor about 150 feet from the dock and let out a “bleep” ton of chain in about 140 feet of water. We then had to reverse back to the wharf, a concrete wall.Successfully tied to 1 tree Trevor had to manage the line to make sure it would not get wrapped in our prop as I am still in reverse trying to get as close to the wharf wall as we could.Then we had to do it all over again to get the other side tied to a tree…..repeat. Finally got the lines tight and chain snug and the boat straighten out so others could come alongside us at the wharf.There is a first for everything…we did it…with help….Time for an anchor beer!Our first round of neighbors…all really big catamarans. We joked that Slow Flight was in the “ghetto” parked at the end being the only monohull at the wharf wall. But we had great access to the dinghy dock (really just concrete stairs) and we were parked right in front of another hotel which serves cold beer and food…. SCORE! Footage from Trevor’s drone.
All settled at about mid afternoon we cleaned up and headed to a dinner at Abba’s hotel. He is the main guy here who can arrange for anything you want: laundry, tours, diving, cooking classes, dinner, shopping…etc. We kept him close : )
Here we all are arriving at Abba’s hotel, after walking through town.As we all arrived…Abba himself is singing and welcoming us all to his place and the island.Shoes off : )The foyer at the hotel…Magnificent!One of Abba’s hotel rooms…. it is about $30 usd to stay here for a night.The dinner table. We had about 30 people from the rally. They served us soup as our frist course, main dish buffet style of kinds of local fare and fresh fish, then a dessert…. all for about $15 usd. Cold Bintang (local beer) and great atmosphere….what a wonderful welcome to this island. No photos of the food… we were all too busy chatting it up and eating.
THE BACK STORY of the Spice islands –There is so much history here and I can barely remember it all myself and I am still learning it as well…. so I took titbits from Wikipedia to explain the basic history of these Spice Islands.
The red dot is on the main island of Banda Neira where Slow Fight is and at present is where Fort Belgica stands, one of the largest remaining Dutch forts that are still intact. The green dot to the left of Slow Flight is the island of Gunung Api which is an active volcano that last erupted in 1988. The Yellow dot (far left) is the island of Run and in the 17th century, this island was involved in an exchange between the British and the Dutch; it was exchanged for the island of Manhattan in New York.
Banda was the world’s only source of nutmeg and mace, spices used as flavourings, medicines, and preserving agents that were at the time highly valued in European markets. The allure of such profits saw an increasing number of Dutch expeditions; it was soon seen that in trade with the East Indies, competition from each would eat into all their profits. Thus the competitors united to form the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) (the ‘Dutch East Indies Company) in 1602. The English had built fortified trading posts on tiny Ai and Run islands, ten to twenty kilometres from the main Banda Islands. With the English paying higher prices, they were significantly undermining Dutch aims for a monopoly. As Anglo-Dutch tensions increased in 1611 the Dutch built the larger and more strategic Fort Belgica above Fort Nassau.
In 1621 well-armed soldiers were landed on Bandaneira Island and within a few days The orang kaya (local leaders of Banda) were forced at gunpoint to sign an unfeasibly arduous treaty,one that was in fact impossible to keep, thus providing an excuse to use superior Dutch force against the Bandanese.The Dutch quickly noted a number of alleged violations of the new treaty, in response to which the Dutch launched a punitive massacre. Japanese mercenaries were hired to deal with the orang kaya, forty of whom were beheaded with their heads impaled and displayed on bamboo spears (aka Bandanese Massacre).
On July 31, 1667, an extraordinary deal was struck: England officially swapped two of the small islands for a swampy Dutch colony once known as New Amsterdam — now Manhattan, New York.
With the Napoleonic wars raging across Europe, the English returned to the Bandas in the early 19th century, temporarily taking over control from the Dutch. On 9 August 1810, the British appeared at Banda Neira. They quickly stormed the island and attacked Belgica Castle at sunrise. The battle was over within hours, with the Dutch surrendering Fort Nassau – after some subterfuge – and within days the remainder of the Banda Islands. This gave the English an opportunity to uproot hundreds of valuable nutmeg seedlings and transport them to their own colonies in Ceylon and Singapore, breaking forever the Dutch monopoly and consigning the Bandas to economic decline and irrelevance.
We took a photo of a painting in the local museum here in Banda depicting the Bandanese massacre. One of our rally boats took their kids to the museum and the eldest son said to his mom, “I think this is a little inappropriate for us.”…well said.
The next few weeks are truly a blur…filled with fun tours, visit to a school, diving and hanging out with the other cruisers and locals. There is no way for me to post all the photos I would like so this is just a snap shot of new and cool observations and over all “The Best of Banda”…. for us!
The town, wharf, and the market – It was a busy wharf with many supply ships and cruise ships coming and going. Additionally, all the fishing vessels and the boats from neighboring islands would wiz by us. Town was a short walk around but most of where the locals live is a 10 minute scooter ride away.
These are the nets we try to avoid out in the seas of Indonesia : )This large, for this bay, cruise ship comes in about once a week. It’s so large that where we are med moored the harbour master sometimes has to ask boats tied here to move if the cruise ship wants to come in bow in. We got lucky and the cruise ship decided to turn around in the bay…but another boat had to move anchor…eeekkkkss…not fun when you are anchoring in 100+ feet of water!These supply ships carry mostly supplies and some passengers…we were told that this is the way people “traffic” possibly drugs and other illegal substances as it’s a fast and cheap way to travel among the islands.The market…. pretty much everyone sell the same things so you just have to look around and see what looks good and what is the best price you can get. We believe that prices could be a bit higher for us as we are not local…but hard to tell.Spices, rice, beans are readily available but we haven’t found regular flour yet…. they have bread here but it’s super sweet.We went to the museum and this is a traditional nutmeg picking basket…still used today.For nutmeg that has fallen to the ground…they use these baskets and long stick made from bamboo to pick them up (like chopsticks) so they don’t have to bend down.The dinghy landing….there were about 30 boats here at one point..this spot got pretty congested…Traffic jam!
Spices and new foods:
Spice tour About 15 of us piled into a boat and was whisked away to the nearby island of Banda Besar where the nutmeg farm is. This village must be so use to us tourist…we didn’t get much attention as we did in Debut or Wab. Our tour guide (forgot his name) was fabulous and told us stories and would answer all of our random questions and stop to tell us local plants and flowers along the way.
These delicious treats were homemade by Abba’s wife. I liked the green ones: Coconut filled wrap with palm sugar…don’t let the color fool you.These colorful stairs were recently painted for the tourist season.Cinnamon….. There was cloves and almonds drying in the paths…just incredible…the fragrance….Jack fruit….we have yet to try this….we hear it is pretty smelly but is a staple here…as it grows on trees : )No idea what these are called but our guide just picked one and eat it. It had a sour citrus taste…probably wasn’t ripe yet…. love that we can just eat of the trees!Fresh ginger just dug up. I actually still have this little guy in our freezer. There was turmeric root as well.And of course…the nutmeg tree!The sacred well of Lonthoir…. for some reason it is known to be in the shape of a cat’s face. According to oral history the well was found by a woman who saw a cat emerge from the undergrowth dripping wet….I didn’t see it. here is a cleansing ceremony that happens every 7-10 years and a large ceremony is put forth. You couldn’t sit on the ledge or put your feet on it…a few people needed reminding but I am sure it’s not the first time.A few of us tried the water…it was….delicious!We walked and toured an old Dutch Fort….here we were told about the massacre and how the Dutch hired the Japanese to kill the local people…. so curious why they hired the Japanese and why?! I need to do more research…..I just loved how this family hung the stuffed animals….I couldn’t resist : )Unfortunately there is a lot of rubbish all over the place, on land and in the water. It’s hard to imagine, especially coming from a rich country that is serious about recycling and proper garbage disposal, but here these thousands of islands have been doing things differently and it’s hard to judge them…. It’s what they have been doing for so long. We have heard of local efforts to help educate and teach the younger generations about rubbish and recycling and we dearly hope it will stick. It is also hard for us, as cruisers, to dispose of our garbage we accumulate along the way and leave it for these communities to “deal with”. We of course minimize our waste but one has to wonder where our garbage ends up…..it’s hard to say.This guy was hand carving nutmeg key chains. He was selling them for a few dollars…..not sure what type of wood it is made from but it was pretty soft wood.Walking by a school, I threw up my fists to make a “Hulk Hogan” stance…this is what I got in return…just precious!!!!At the end of the Spice tour we were offered cinnamon tea and nutmeg juice….. You might be wondering how nutmeg juice tastes…..AMAZING!!!! It take over a thousand nutmegs to be boiled and cooled many times over days to produce a decent sized batch of nutmeg juice.
Cooking class It was so interesting to hear about how the history of this place shaped the cooking styles here…but of course they do…I am just new to learning about it! When the Dutch “displaced” the local Bandanese, they “imported” slaves from Java and Ambon (other islands in Indonesia). By doing this, the Javanese for example, were use to cooking with peanuts which grew on their island but had never cooked with almonds (plentiful in Banda) and the other natural growing spices here on Banda Island. As a result, the cuisine here is a blend of Javanese dishes with Banda species : )
First dish: Tuna ball soup….it tasted like chicken noodle soup without the noodles…no joke!Second dish: Eggplant on an almond sauce. Here the eggplant is fried in oil. The orange sauce is the beginning of the almond sauce. They use red peppers but only for the color.Then you add the almond milk…made by hundreds of almonds blended up and pressed.Here are the almonds grown here…boiled and hand peeled…each one!The result: Eggplant with almond sauce…delicious (even Trevor liked it and he doesn’t like eggplant)!!!!last dish was called a Banda Salad….. Here she is making a paste with garlic, peppers, shallots, salt, in a traditional mortar bowl.The paste is then added to cooked fresh tuna…..These new to us vegetables is what makes up the salad part…. Love using new ingredients…we will have to try these in our salads!
Diving the Islands –Trevor and I choose to take advantage of the diving around this area for many reasons: It was cheap and we expect the diving to be more expensive as we head south to the more touristy spots, the water and flow was incredible, and we LOVED Eddie, the dive guide! We dove 7-8 times and went to 3 different islands. Hatta Island was truly the best for visibility and variety of fish and coral. Unfortunately we couldn’t get our camera on the right setting so all our photos look green…oh well…first world problems : )
Eddie, our dive guide sitting on the roof of our boat as we head to our dive site….Banda Island in the background.Moray eel….Trevor literally cooking us lunch on the boat. Generally we would take 2 dives in a row with a lunch break in between as it wasn’t cost-effective for Eddie and his team to take us out for only 1 dive to these outer islands. The dive spots on Aye island did not have a spot to buy lunch so we brought our own.Huge fan coralSpanish dancer flat worm?Ummm..I wish I had a person near by to show the scale and size of these fish, of what kind I have no idea, but they were HUGE!!!!!Peek-a-boo…..Banana Island diveAnybody home? Craig (Il Sogno) checking things outOn Hatta Island, there was a homestay that served us lunch of ramen with a fried egg…. There were 8 of us who dove that day.We dove with David and Amy (SV Starry Horizons) and Carlos (SV Mirniy Okean) for a few dives and these guys are SERIOUS about filming…. just look at that camera!!!!!Loved looking at these colorful sponges….Not sure what type of ray this was but I had to enhance the photo for you to get an outline of it….Huge plate coral….These large sponges were so fun to swim around and peer into… you could fit a person inside of one….My personal favorite was seeing this yellow spotted moray eel….usually we just see green or brown eels but this one was so beautiful and its girth was thicker than a mans quad…seriously I have never seen such a large eel!
Back to School We were approached by a man named Mon, a local teacher who has his own english school. He invited us, and whoever wanted to come along, to his school and meet the children and help them practice their english. We spread the word among our rally and we had about 12 people…it was fantastic!
Mon literally rounded up random persons on scooters to pick each one of us and drive us to his school…it was totally unexpected as I thought we would walk to his school. Everyone thought it was so much fun though I am sure it looked strange to the villagers who watched 12 scooters ride by with tourists on the back going through their village…hilarious!Mon’s home/school is right on the water on the other side of the island. I don’t think he is doing too bad for himself : )The classroom was small and there were about 17-18 kids with ages ranging from 6-14. They all prepared many english songs for us and they sang with great pride.Each of us had to come up and write our names and place we were from on the board. We later had to come up with a question for the kids for them to answer. Here is Trevor and I at the board…it was nerve-racking being in front of the class like that…brought back childhood memories….Mon is trying to teach his students about trash and plastics in their waters and lands. He does a regular beach clean up and has written and drawn a book he wants to publish and sell. The kids were very enthusiastic and shouted slogans like “clean up the ocean”.Just because….After the kids left for home, Mon and his wife prepared for all of us fresh coconut water and little snacks to enjoy before we walked back to our boats….it was such a wonderful experience to see the kids so excited to have visitors and Mon does a great job getting the students exposed to many cultures by reaching out to us. His hospitality and kindness did not stop there as almost every day we saw him and he would give Trevor or I a bag of homemade cinnamon cookies his wife made…literally almost everyday he would stop by.
Just hanging around and having fun!
Dinner out…as usual… This night we were sending off Tamara, Craig and Karene’s daughter on SV IL Sogno who was to fly out in a few days….Tamara has a wonderful sense of humor (her “stuffing” her face with her fish dinner)….and will be missed : )A little work…Our dinghy had a nail hole in it so Trevor patched it up…though these patches never seem to work…but thus far, it seems ok…Good job Trevor!!!!This is the place Trevor and I went almost every single day to eat breakfast or lunch…..It’s a homestay so you can stay in a room here for about $15 usd…. : )In the center there is a garden where you can enjoy eating your meal and connecting to wifi…you can see why we frequented this place…others did too!Food is cheap here….a breakfast like this (fresh fruit, a banana pancake and coffee) cost about $5 usd….why cook?!Abba singing Karoke….We actually watched an old video of SV Delos on YouTube about the Banda Islands and Ambon…..funny enough we saw Abba in the video. We asked Abba about it and he started to laugh…I guess it was a fun time for Abba… There could have been some Marijuana involved…but the reference was not clear : )A cultural dance was performed depicting picking nutmeg and such.The music was played by this wonderful lady, must have been in her 60’s or older, with a wooden mallet on these bronze bowls… We couldn’t figure out the organization of these bowls in relation to the sound they made….she must be playing from memory!Our friends on Starry Horizons and Mirniy Okean showed up after most of the rally left Banda. Here are us three “stragglers” at the dock with the town to our selves…. magical….Our boats were so close together that Carlos (here) is just hand paddling to his boat….. because why not…Game night on SV Starry Horizons…this is a fun and new game for us, not sure the name of it but it’s a mix of chinese checkers and cribbage…with a splash of champagne : )Did we mention that SV Starry Horizons and SV Mirniy Okean have their own YouTube channels? Let’s just put it this way…their footage and videos make our blog look like kindergarten compared to their PROFESSIONAL videos. With this said, all the boys had to fly their drones…Trevor too…Do you see that smile on his face?! Happy boy!Nice Drone shot Trevor…
Fun fact for Pirates of the Caribbean fans (from the internet): The Flying Dutchman (Dutch: De Vliegende Hollander) was a Dutch East Indies ship from the 17th-century golden age of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) destroyed by a fierce storm near the Cape of Good Hope in 1680. A ghost version of ship has reportedly been seen several times. The oldest extant version has been dated to the late 18th century. Sightings in the 19th and 20th centuries reported the ship to be glowing with ghostly light. If hailed by another ship, the crew of the Flying Dutchman will try to send messages to land, or to people long dead. In ocean lore, the sight of this phantom ship is a portent of doom.
Banda…We did it right….We would have stayed longer as we were invited to hang out with Mon and his wife for the Indonesian Independence day, August 17th. But we need to keep going to enjoy the rest of what Indonesia has in store for us….as usual, it;’ always about the people!!!!
Next up…. Wakatobi Marine National Park, 3,000 student dance, and more…..
The board (peg) game you were playing is called “Pegs and Jokers”. At least that is what they called it in Mexico. I purchased one (for 6-8 players) at a charity auction while we were down in Manzanillo last year. It can be cut-throat.
The board (peg) game you were playing is called “Pegs and Jokers”. At least that is what they called it in Mexico. I purchased one (for 6-8 players) at a charity auction while we were down in Manzanillo last year. It can be cut-throat.