7 July 2016 Pulau Airabu South, Anambas
A thunderstorm passed by last night, but it only gave us a short shower and a few gusts of wind. Other than that we had a very peaceful night.
Together with “Amulet”, we set off at 09:00 with the intention of investigating the anchorages on the east coast of Airabu and planned to spend the night in a big bay on the west side of the island. As we headed north up the coast, it became apparent that last night’s anchorage was the most protected on the east coast. There are some small islands on the south east corner of Airabu, which last night gave us some protection from the prevailing south-east waves. As we headed north, we lost that protection and the anchorages were more exposed to the swell.
Although the anchorages are pretty, they weren’t suitable in the current wind conditions, so we decided to head around to the big bay on the west coast at 02°46.28N 106°12.76E. At the north end of the bay, there’s a small village with a mosque and a huge telecom aerial, but unfortunately no internet.
The bay looked very good on Google Earth and the charts showed the depth slowly shelving to the head of the bay, which has mangroves. This normally means a nice sand/mud bay and good anchoring. But, not this bay. It was over 25 metres deep and then shelved quickly to a fringing reef at 4-5 metres deep, about ¼ mile from the shore.
We crossed the reef hoping to find a sandy lagoon behind, but when I dropped the anchor in 12 metres of murky water, we heard an ominous rumbling on the chain - coral… “Amulet” tried further towards the shore, but dragged in very soft mud and couldn’t find anywhere better. Meanwhile our anchor chain was wrapped around coral and I couldn’t budge it. I jumped into the water and snorkelled down 12 metres to try to free the chain and found a mass of coral heads on the sea bed.
Fortunately, as Alba drifted around, the chain freed itself, so while I was standing by in the water, Glenys pulled the chain up and then started the engine as I scrambled aboard. Licking our wounds, we crossed back over the fringing reef and headed to the south side of the bay, hoping to find a deep sandy anchorage.
Both “Amulet” and we tried to anchor in 20+ metres, but it was still coral on the sea bed. By this time it was one o’clock and we needed to find a home, so we gave up and headed back to the previous night’s anchorage. Instead of retracing our route, we went down the west coast - straight into the prevailing 15 knot winds and confused seas.
It wasn’t very pleasant, but at least it was short lived - 45 minutes later, we were in calm water, motoring through a pass north of Lintang (02°43.41N 106°15.28E) and we were soon safely anchored in Pulau Airabu South.
After this “quality” day, we’ve decided to stay here a couple of nights to recover. The pass that we came through is very pretty, so tomorrow we’re planning to check out the snorkelling on the reefs in the pass.
8 July 2016 Pulau Airabu South, Anambas
We spent the morning doing a few chores, running the watermaker and washing some smalls. We’ve been here in the Anambas for nearly a week already, so I did some scheduling to work out which islands we want to concentrate on to maximise our stay here. I also started writing some Cruising Notes for the Anambas Islands, so that hopefully more cruisers will visit this place.
We were planning to go snorkelling in the passage that we came through yesterday, but clouds started to roll in at midday and the afternoon was dismal, with squalls passing through giving occasional gusty winds and heavy rain. We stayed on board and I spent a few hours splicing some Dynema loops around six Antel Low Friction Rings and rigging up some new preventers.
For the past five years, we’ve had our preventer rope tied to the end of the boom with the front end tied to a bow cleat. This is okay, but every time that we need to adjust the main sheet, I have to go up front to adjust the preventer, which is a hassle especially at night and in strong winds. Also gybing has meant re-rigging the preventer.
I’ve now set up two preventers, one on each side of the boat. Each preventer rope runs from the end of the boom, through a Low Friction Ring on the front cleat to a low friction ring on the aft cleat and ends up tied to a Samson post at the back of the cockpit. This allows us to adjust the preventer from the cockpit even if we gybe.
9 July 2016 Pulau Airabu South to Pulau Telaga, Anambas
We were up early and left before seven o’clock, heading towards Pulau Telaga, 30 miles away - after yesterday’s rain, the weather was nice with 15-20 knot south winds. On the way, we stopped at a group of islands and spent a couple of hours exploring possible anchorages.
There’s a small island called Pulau Mengkait, which is being promoted by the tourist office as a place to visit where it’s possible to lodge in a “Home Stay”. It’s a very small island with quite a large village and scores of small fishing boats on moorings at the north east side. Interestingly, the island has a Christian church and most of the ladies that we could see through our binoculars weren’t wearing hijabs. The water around the island is over 30 metres deep, so we didn’t attempt to anchor.
It was a similar story at the other islands with the sea bed over 30 metres deep and then steeply rising to a shallow fringing reef - very frustrating. We found a spectacular little bay on the west side of Lubang Tamban (02°57.98N 106°09.52E) with four lagoons/pools, but they are all protected by reefs. After crossing the first reef with a depth of 5 metres, we found a lagoon that was 12 metres deep, but it was only 50 metres in diameter and too tight for us to anchor. A great shame because the colours were stunning.
Just before noon, we managed to find an anchorage in 6 metres over sand on a reef to the north of a small island called Dikar (03°00.16N 106°08.17E). It was a lovely lunch-time stop - we snorkelled for an hour and then had lunch before continuing onto Pulau Telaga, where we anchored next to “Amulet”.
We anchored at Pulau Telaga North (03°05.545N 105°58.011E) in a depth of 17 metres. It’s a little close to the shallow fringing reef, but I was relieved to see that our anchor was well buried in sand. We went for a snorkel and found that the reef has been extensively bombed in the past, but there is lots of new growth of coral which is encouraging.
There’s a large fishing village ¾ mile away and we soon had a boat load of young men come over to look at us. They were very friendly, so we dropped the fenders down and they came alongside. No-one spoke English and we only spoke a little Indonesian, so it was challenging. They had a big bag of squid and a Wahoo, which they offered to us.
We took the Wahoo and they said that they didn’t want anything in return. I nipped down below, grabbed a spare diving mask and gave it to them - one guy snatched it and they all seemed happy with the deal. I know we were.
Ten minutes later, we had a visit from three young men in a dugout canoe. They said that the village has 100 people and that they were home from University because it’s Idil Fitri - the holiday at the end of Ramadan. When our conversation ground to a halt, it was hard to get rid of them - they just kept asking for beer (“bir” in Indonesian), which of course we don’t have….
10 July 2016 Pulau Telaga, Anambas
Apart from the steady “Thump, Thump, Thump” from the fishing boats and generator in the village, we had a very peaceful night.
In the middle of the morning, “Amulet” and we went across to the village to say hello. Within ten minutes we had a small entourage of adults and children, who insisted on showing us around. Chris had a bag of balloons, which he shared out between the kids. We were led along a very good concrete path past the houses built on stilts. It was interesting that although there was a small mosque, we only saw a couple of women wearing hijabs.
Everyone one was pleased to see us and even more pleased when we said “Salamat Pagi” which means “Good Morning”. At the end of the village, next to the junior school, then path turned right and went through the islands gardens consisting of coconuts, bananas, breadfruit and no doubt cassava and other root vegetables.
The kids took us to a beach on the west side of the island, where we chilled out for fifteen minutes while the kids went to find shells for us - only little ones, unfortunately. On the way back, they showed us the island’s two fresh water wells. They have a diesel pump which pumps the water into a holding tank over the village and the villagers have gravity-fed water on tap - it’s much more organised than I first thought.
A young couple called Harris and Anna had walked around with us and when we arrived back at the village, they invited us into their small house for a drink and some snacks. It’s Idul Fitri, so they had half a dozen small containers with biscuits, Bombay Mix and Wasabi Peas. We had a nice chat (mostly in sign language) looking at their wedding pictures and we showed them some pictures of our family on our tablet. It was a pleasant two hour visit to this friendly village.
In the afternoon, we went snorkelling around the rocky headland to the north of the anchorage. It was clear water but a rocky sea bed with hard corals - not very interesting. We then had a walk on the lovely, white sand beach next to the anchorage and picked up a few small shells.
11 July 2016 Pulau Telaga to Tarempa, Anambas
It was another lovely morning. We’ve been here in the Anambas for over a week now and have had only one afternoon where it has been squally and rained. The weather has been mostly blue skies with fluffy clouds, with the occasional overcast day and there has been constant 10-15 knot south to south-east winds.
We sailed ten miles to Genting Unjut, to check out an anchorage at 03°09.24N 106°05.36E, suggested by our friends on “Anthem”. It’s a sandy shelf between 6 to 10 metres and then slopes off quickly down to 18 metres. The sandy shelf is not very large, maybe 70 metres in diameter and is okay for one boat. It would be good in settled conditions for overnight and makes a great lunchtime stop between Tarempa and Jemaja. If we were staying overnight, we’d probably anchor in 18 metres, but we’re raving cowards…
It was only another 10 miles to the main town of Tarempa. “Amulet” were already anchored in the south-east corner of the harbour, close to a long causeway built over the water on concrete pilings. We tried to anchor behind them, but dragged our anchor on what appeared to be a big pile of building rubble.
On our second attempt, we closely monitored the depth sounder and could see that the sea bed was mostly at 22 metres, but the area where we’d dragged was 12-15 metres deep. We dropped the anchor at 03°13.148N 106°13.151E in 22 metres of water right next to a Karaoke Bar - it seems to be good holding.
After lunch, we wandered around town with Chris and Nancy from “Amulet”, getting a feel for the place. It’s a bustling little town with narrow streets packed full of small shops selling a huge variety of items from clothing to motorbike parts and dried fish to plastic bowls. This is the largest commercial centre in the Anambas Islands and all the outlying villagers buy things from here.
The overriding thing that indicates that we’re in Indonesia is the huge number of motorbikes. They are parked everywhere and weave their way through the streets, even though the very narrow passageways in the markets. We found a place that will hire a couple of bikes for 50,000 Rupiah (£2.50) per day (per bike of course) - we’ve booked two for tomorrow.
We tried to find the Port Captain to clear in to the Anambas, but the office was deserted - we’ll try again tomorrow. We bought a few provisions and found a Chinese shop selling beer for 13,000 Rupiah (£0.65) per can, which is not a bad price for a predominantly Muslim community in a very remote island. It’s Heineken, but beggars can’t be choosers.
In the evening, we could hear the various Mosques broadcasting the Call To Prayer on their loudspeakers. We’ve not heard that for a while, but at least it was very melodic, although I probably won’t think so tomorrow morning when they start up before dawn.
12 July 2016 Tarempa, Anambas
We received an email (via the dreadfully slow internet), which tells us that our new main sail is unlikely to be ready until the beginning of September. We were hoping to collect the sail in Nongsa Point Marina, but our Indonesian visas will expire on the 27th August, so we need to think about alternative plans. Perhaps we get the sail delivered to Singapore or maybe try to get our Indonesian visas extended.
Our first stop was at the customs, where we informed them that we’d arrived in the Anambas. They seemed very relaxed and friendly and simply took a copy of our port clearances. They took us to the Immigration office, where we were told that it would be possible to extend our visas for 30 days, which is an attractive option.
After collecting our motorcycles, “Amulet” and we rode to see the Chinese Temple, which was small, but had a good view of the harbour. The streets to get there were interesting being very narrow and weaving between huge rocks amongst the buildings.
It took us a while to find our way out of town, but eventually we were heading out on a road that we thought would take us to the “Air Terjun Temburun” waterfall, but got a bit lost and ended up in a village on the east coast of the island, where the road petered out. This is a lovely lush island with coconut and banana trees interwoven with the sub-tropical forest - the colours of the sea from the hills are stunning.
After turning around, we eventually, with the help from some local girls, found the water falls which (errrr..) were a trickle - not surprising after the driest season in living memory. On our way back to town, we stopped off for lunch at a Warung (like a restaurant, but with plastic tables and cracked concrete floors). The food was basic, but very tasty.
We occupied ourselves for a couple more hours by driving along the causeway next to the anchorage, exploring a fishing village and visiting the Anambas Lodge, which is ok, but a long way from town.
Back on the boat, Bryan from AmazingAnambas.com came to visit. I’ve had email conversations with him over the past few months and he’s been giving me information on the Anambas Islands. He’s from Singapore and has set up a web site extolling the virtues of the Anambas, trying to help the local tourist trade to get started, but is frustrated by the overwhelming lethargy.
In the evening, we went out for a meal with Bryan and we’re going to take him out to a fishing village called Air Suk tomorrow.
13 July 2016 Tarempa, Anambas
At 09:30, I zipped over to the dinghy dock and picked up Bryan and his friend Axel (who runs the Sakura Inn). We were soon on our way motoring towards Air Suk, where Bryan has promised to take some aerial video of the secondary school with his drone.
On the way, we poked our heads into the anchorage just off the Anambas Lodge, which is at 03°13.64N 106°14.38E in 22 metres of water.
There are plenty of shallow reefs between the Tarempa and Air Auk. The local shallow-draft boats take a route through the reefs, which is marked by navigation buoys, but the light wasn’t very good and we were heading into the sun, so we took the long way around the reef in a deep channel. Air Asuk (03°14.68N 106°17.46E) and anchored off the village in 10 metres of water - it seemed to be sand and good holding. We went ashore and walked to the school where Bryan did his aerial photo-shoot. There doesn’t seem to be much happening in Air Asuk and a big black thunder cloud was lurking about, so we didn’t stay long.
On the way back, we spotted a local boat that was drifting with someone waving for us to come over. We rolled away our sails and motored over to find that they had a problem with their engine mount and didn’t have the spanners to sort the problem out. We tied them alongside Alba and I handed tools over to them. Twenty minutes later, we were on our way with an invite to a wedding party in a few days’ time at their village, which we politely declined.
We anchored in the same spot in Tarempa, but had to have three attempts. On the first attempt, we picked up a huge piece of polythene sheeting with our anchor and dragged backwards at an alarming rate. On our second attempt we were too keen and dragged through the soft mud. The third time we dropped the anchor and left it to settle into the mud before successfully backing it in an hour later.
“Sea Monkey” arrived today, so we invited them over for sun-downers and exchanged stories. They had a good time at Jermaja, so we’re looking forward to going there.