We've just got a little problem... Completely deserted, there's just us here...
So it's gonna be interesting to see whether this is going to be pretty
straightforward... You can come to places like this that nobody else can get to...
Or we piss around for two hours... I can't really describe what an incredibly
beautiful and stunning... adjectives aren't good enough.
Early start because we want to go to our next anchorage having had a lovely time
here. You see I've got Liz's glasses on Waddya reckon? I think they suit me... anyway
we've just got a little problem. The anchor chain has decided to wrap itself
around a rock, and unfortunately that rock is kind of directly underneath us.
At the moment the chain is going straight down like this. so we've been
swinging on a very short scope which hasn't been a problem because we've had
no fetch and not much wind.. Normally first thing in the morning the
visibility of the water is excellent so you can see exactly where to drive
through. Unfortunately we've got a few ripples and so the viz isn't quite as
good, so it's gonna be interesting to see whether this is going to be pretty
straightforward, in that we just drive over the top of it and it releases
itself or we piss around for two hours whilst I have to dive down and try and
direct Liz to drive the boat in the correct direction to unhook it. But
essentially it's gone down it's hooked around hundred eighty degrees back on
itself, and then back over another rock. The anchor's out there but so we should
really be swinging somewhere over there, but we're not. So, yes, always a bit
stressful that. Just required a bit of careful manoeuvering and then we were
free. So we've now gotta get out of here. We've got a reef that side, reef that side,
then we should be clear. Behind me you can see Liz's bum, she's putting out the
rod that Ben very kindly donated to her.
Thanks Ben, it's back in action. The only problem of course is that we still have
Charlie underneath the boat, and Liz is very conscious of the fact she doesn't want
to catch him. She's already caught him once, so she's trying to cast the line
out as far back off the boat as possible. We're hoping that Charlie finds himself
a whale to attach himself to since that is his proper home, and we were speaking
to Ian on Songbird the other day and he said he actually saw a whale breaching
the surface of the water somewhere out here! So they do come in here, so let's
hope that Charlie finds himself a decent home. Meanwhile we are just
doing a bit of motor-sailing very early in the morning. I say early, it's 8
o'clock. We've got quite a bit of North westerly swell and this seems to
be normal for this part of the Anambus. We always have this northwesterly which
is why all the recommended anchorages are not on the northwest side. So not far
to go for the next place, which is about 15 miles away. So we'll just motor-sail
for the moment, maybe if we get around the next little island we might have a bit
more wind to put the headsail out.
Liz has got a bite.
What have you got, Liz? A plastic cup! The first thing I caught was that, second thing is
a plastic cup. Very, very disappointing. Well at least we know the lure's staying on!
We're coming up to the northwest tip of Penjalin it's called, which is a group of
three Islands or so. I've been wondering why the boat seems to be
pointing directly at the end of the island, and I've just checked my bearings...
according to the chart it should be a hundred and twenty degrees off the bow,
and it's not, it's 110. So that shows you how out these charts are. So caution when
putting in waypoints making sure that the waypoints are well offshore because
if we were to navigate by the chart alone we could be in trouble.
so it's a case of eyeballing it
Anchoring in paradise... We've been at this now for almost an hour. I've been in the
water twice... We are trying to follow a couple of recommended anchorages,
Very difficult to see behind me, perhaps but you can see the odd
sandy patch but they're surrounded by bommies. We've dropped the hook twice in
rock, been down to check it, found sandy patches, tried to drop in sandy patches
dropped back into rock. it's just a f**king nightmare. Liz and I are getting very impatient
with each other as well. Problem is that it's difficult to see what the
seabed is like, the visibility for some reason is a bit odd, I think because
we've got wind coming through and it's creating ripples on the water so it's
very difficult to actually tell whether it's just a dark patch or whether it's the
shadow of the boat, whether it's rock or whether it's sand.
Not while I'm eating, turn it off... Well, we're running out of bread and things, and I hate
making bread - it takes ages and can't be bothered with it, too fussy. So I went into
the Cruising Cref Shookbook(!)... Cruising Chef Cookbook, and he's got a recipe for
Syrian pan-fried flatbread. And this is it! Takes about 10 minutes, put all the
ingredients together mix them up into a sort of dough, leave them for an hour, cut
it in half, and then fry it. And it comes out like this! I just stuck
some pesto sauce on it. It's really good, it could be the way forward for us. (It's
very very tasty, only problem is we're running out of cheese but I'm wondering
if Marmite might be quite good on it first thing in the morning) Marmite might
be alright, but the bigger problem is we're running out of flour so when
that's gone no more of these, I'm afraid! (Just quickly just tell us about our anchoring
experience we've just had). Oh it was horrible, just took ages and ages and ages..
Kept seeing bommies, couldn't see really how deep they were. We'd go from 15m
to 9m in a split second and it was just too scary. So we've come right out, a long
way out of the anchorage itself, and we're in 25m I think, aren't we?
(Actually we're down to 21 but more importantly I think we're in sand only)
Hopefully, anyway the anchor seems to have set so far. (And also
just there is one of the recommended dive sites). And there's a really nice
beach over there. I'm gonna take the kayaks to that, but not until I've had an hour.
this is the island of Pendjalin, and it's the north-eastern most island of the
Anambas. (Apart from there's another island group, I can't
remember the name of it now, which is a good sort of, about eighty miles
away even further northeast. I think that's also partly Anambas, but it's not
what we call Anambas. Anyway the point is is that we're right in the corner now.
We had a bit of rubbish weather yesterday, but look at this!
It's cleared up and we've come ashore. Given us a chance to get some nice
aerial shots with the drone, and more importantly Liz has finally got the
kayak out, so she's just paddling around this beautiful bay here. You can see it's
that time of day now where, with the use of polarizing lenses and filters, we can
really catch the detail in this reef here. So we've got this big island over
here, it's a long thin one that protects us from the Northwest swell. Esper's at
anchor over there, and we've got a smaller island here, and then another
group of islands here. So it's fairly protected and the whole area is covered
in reef. There's a couple of recommended dive and snorkel spots, so that's what
we're hoping to do next, to go and do some exploring underwater!
I've just gone out the dingy just to find a little snorkel spot and I just had
to stop and show you this. Look at this. This is the thing of postcards! It's
surrounded by reef - excuse me whilst I just turn my lens, my
polarizer. You can see down, we are surrounded by reefs all the way around
here, stretches out (turn that filter again across there) Oh, a bit of fish
activity there. Then you've got this huge sandy patch. Unfortunately it's not
really accessible by boat which is why we've anchored over there but it's got
reef either side of it. Now I have heard that over there, somewhere there, is a
good little dive spot, so I'm going to go and check that place out...
This has been our first full day at the Pendjalin Islands, and they're the most
northeastern islands of their Anambas, completely deserted, there's just us here
and a few little fishing boats that have come in at night, and they're often in
the morning. But other than that it's completely remote and completely
deserted. Nobody lives here and for me that's, that's the main thing about being
on your own boat, you can come to places like this that nobody else can get to.
And there are fewer and fewer of these places left in the world, so I feel
really privileged that we've been able to come here now and see this place
before it really opens up to tourism. it's just starting, they're just starting
to get some ideas about what they could do with this place and it's just
stunning. Anyway today we took the kayak ashore, it's quite a way over there. We took
the kayak we towed it behind us, and then I kayaked tall around the shoreline over
the coral and thoroughly enjoyed it. Did some beach combing, we found all kinds of
pretty shells. And then you went off in the dingy and started snorkeling. And so
I kayaked back out and joined you snorkeling. And we saw... now I
understand when people say a "coral garden", it was incredible.
Lots of different corals, loads and loads and loads of all kinds of tropical
fish, Napoleon fish this big, butterfly fish, fox fish... you name it they were
there. There was even a Nemo. And yeah... it's really... I can't really
describe what an incredibly beautiful and stunning (adjectives aren't good
enough) anchorage this is. I would recommend to anyone - if you get the
opportunity - come to the Anambas while it is still as remote, and as quiet as this.