Captain’s Log: Kalabahi on Alor Island, Part 2

Aug 8-10

Hi All,

We are really glad we stayed for the Rally’s opening ceremony, in spite of seeing many of our friends take off several days ago. We woke up not feeling great, maybe 60 % but determined to give it a go. We were supposed to go into shore around 8am for a 9am welcome ceremony. The call came out on the 7:30am net that things were delayed waiting for some officials to come from Jakarta so things would start at 9…..ok, no problem. Well…….the show actually started at 11:30am…..hmmmm. People just say that is Indonesia but I’m determined to figure out why. One of our guides told a joke…….an Indonesian was asked what is the word for the Mexican word “manana”……the Indonesian thought about it and responded, hmmm, we do not have a word that describes such urgency…..haha!!!

I think it has to do with “importance”……the later you are the more important you must be. We watched as several of the “lesser” officials started to arrive around 10am……then a steady string until around 11:30am when the Jakarta people showed up with a police escort. Actually the delay was ok for us…..it gave us a chance to walk around the town some and go to the open market. We had wanted to do this on Monday but we were just not feeling well enough for an outing…..something very much not like us. This market could have been in any of the third world countries we have visited……Mexico, Central America, French Polynesia, Tonga, Fiji and Vanuatu……a very large open display of local goods and produce. The big difference is the language…..continues to be too difficult for us to communicate…..so, I am now mastering Google Translate and the microphone. We wanted to know what this green stalk was…..looked like celery or bok joy…..I asked in English, Gigi responded in Indonesian and the lady spoke back to Gigi and we found out it was mustard greens……curious!!!!!! Another one was we were in search of some dried peas with spices….a snack we coveted in Fiji. What we found were corn nuts coated with spices. (Stacey on Bella Vita had told us about this snack). We used Gigi and found out indeed it was corn……and very tasty!!!!

But, after the morning events……the ceremony was ok…..some very elaborate traditional dancing and some welcome speeches followed by the presentation of our “souvenir”……one of the intricately weaved scarfs…..very nice……but we were worn out…..so back to the boat for a 3 hour break/nap and then off at 3 for the start of the Exhibition……wow oh wow….now that was spectacular. 22 towns from Alor and other islands were gathering for a 5 day exhibition and we were invited for the opening. We walked up to the Exhibition, maybe 10 minutes, and there was a huge gathering waiting for the parade to start. A local woman with perfect English comes up to us and asks are we with Sail Indonesia…..we say yes…..she says you are supposed to go to the tent for the show….oh, how do we get there, I will show you…..and she and her family promptly take us to the gates and show us where the tent is located. We then go in and find only a handful of SI people……we think many people took the afternoon off……and wow……the 22 groups each stop in front of the tent and do a performance. Some are doing traditional war dances and some are doing other more modern type of dancing. All have elaborate carved wood instruments and elaborate costumes. Blew us away for sure!!!

After the almost 2 hour show we find Eva and she helps us top up our phone for data. We have found out that once again our American credit card is old technology. To use it online in Indonesia we need a 3-D enabled card….come on America, get with it……we were told so many times in New Zealand and Australia how antiquated our cards are!!!

We then walked around to all the stalls….one in particular was the weaving tent…..lots of woman weaving these very intricate patterns and making thread…..all by hand……amazing to watch!!! Then it was back to the boat for a 1.5 hour rest and then off to dinner. The dinner was ok…….we were told to be at the gathering place at 7 to catch the bus…..we were there about 6:50pm only to see the bus drive off full of Rally people…..there were maybe 20 people left and it was, no worries, the bus will be back shortly…..well, 30 min later the bus shows up for a 10 min ride….turns out major traffic jam around the Exhibition. So we get to the dinner place and everyone is sitting but no food….we are told by our host we are waiting for the “regency”……hmmm……sure enough he is the head guy and after about 20 minutes…..now about 8pm……so an hour late…….he shows up and the show begins…..speeches and some traditional dancing and then a buffet dinner……the food was quite good and I was hungry…..but after about 30 min the stomach was rumbling again…..arghhhhhh!!!

Rally: Well…..this is a good time to tell about the Rally. This Rally has a reputation of being inconsistent….some years great and some years so so…..well, we have one of the so so years…..ugh!!! It seems an Indonesian named Raymond has helped organize our Rally for the last 16 years but has since been enticed to join the other rival Rally that starts in Cairns. Raymond supposedly has a lot of political connections so was able to secure the better dates and locations for the other Rally…..hmmm, we maybe chose unwisely this year but then again, we wanted to go to Darwin and our Top End tour was a highlight…..AND, it has now been confirmed the other Rally has 15 of 33 boats confirmed with malaria….yikes!!!! Our Darwin organizers did not handle this very well….in fact continued to tell people our Rally was a bust…..very negative…..he actually told us that if he sees Raymond he will bust him in the mouth (seriously! Good grief!!), but, if we wanted to have the best Indo experience we should just go join-up with the other Rally. He continued to say that Raymond is claiming us to the government so he probably would welcome us to make his claim legit. Well, holy cow and color us feeling like we’re in the midst of the elementary school playground!! Sheesh!!

Once the Darwin organizers left Kupang, Eva the Indonesian rep for ASWINDO, the Indo tourism department and her boyfriend Kyle, gathered us all together and said the Rally is still on, and they are working hard to make this a great experience and will help us make adjustments to the schedule. We really like these two and both have helped us on occasion with some interpretation and organizing tours et al. There is a big problem with getting our Visa extension after 60 days because of the schedule but hopefully that will get sorted in the next week or so….more on that later!!

The problem is our Rally’s dates/locations are too quick in the beginning and too close near the end. To keep up with the Rally over the next 1.5 months will necessitate many overnight runs which the conventional wisdom is to avoid so as not to hit any unlit vessels or fish traps……yikes……and we would not be able to do as much diving in Komodo and not climb Mt Rinjani. I’d say about 1/3 of the Rally just took off on their own after all the negativity/controversy in Kupang. Another third, like us, want a mixture of Rally organized cultural events and scuba diving/play time on our own et al and wanted to participate in the Rally maybe 50% of the time. The other third are Rally people and are sticking with the Rally schedule. Most of our friends or boats we have met and are gravitating toward are in the first or second group, but very few of them stayed in Alor for the Ceremonies. So, we found ourselves in Alor with the Rally group…..OMG…..about 10-15 boats left today with us all going to a small inlet called Kabir….we don’t know how big that anchorage is but the thought of all these boats in one place in a small anchorage…..well, been there, done that and too many boats have invaded our anchor swing zone on this Rally for us to do that again.

So we are trying to do a 65 nm passage to a spot on Kawula…..our charts don’t actually have a name but our friends on Minnie B were here 2 years ago and had a lat and long for the anchorage. (Thank you Minni B!) Bella Vita was there last night and loved it!!! The only problem is current…..we have been fighting a 1-3kt current so our ETA is late…..ugh!!! Kathy has since done some research and found for July the prevailing current averages 0.7 kts to the East….great….we are gong West so will have to fight this pesky current for another 300 nm.

OK….that’s it for now!!!

Hope all is well!!

John
Mystic Moon
GO MYSTIC GO!!

PS: Sorry no pics again…..no time to upload and now the internet is very slow…..maybe I’ll have time in the anchorage!!

PSS: We did get to the anchorage and anchor down around 5pm, about 1/2 hour before sunset but more on that next time!!