So we're loaded up with more squid. I've just had squid for breakfast, the
remainder of yesterday's squid. We've got some more fresh squid. We've got a great
big fish as well, so we'll chuck that on the barbie later...
We've now left this bay here. The snorkeling looked all right. The best bit
of snorkeling (I think I said before) was where the guys have based their FADs. so
(Sorry, just check the depth). Rremember the chart bears absolutely no resemblance
to what is actually happening here, which is why it's important to memorize the
lay of the land in instances like yesterday, when we had to move the boat
in an emergency as one of those FADs was dragging towards us. Didn't
have time to get the phone up and look at Google Earth so had to remember the
lay of the land. So that's why it's important to always remember/familiarize
yourself with an entry into a bay - just in case you have to get out very quickly.
Anyway, I digress... The weather. As you can see, it's a little
bit overcast still, although it's certainly a lot better than it was
yesterday, so we figured we'd save the remaining islands which are further
south from here which are supposed to be very pretty. We'll save those for when
the weather improves a little. The weather today is ideal for anchoring
near a town and going exploring. We also have about seven or eight rubbish bags
that we need to dispose of as well, so our lazarette is full of rubbish at the
moment, need to get rid of those. And we need to provision because we have run out of
fresh things apart from squid and fish.
So we've just arrived at lunchtime, I think, with the call to prayer in the
town of... we don't know what! It's the island of Matak - we previously had
been up the other side. This is a (I said earlier) is a big town. It's as big
as Tarempa, if not bigger. But we don't know what the name of the town is
because we haven't been able to get online.
None of the charts tell us what it is. There's the town of Tabong which is
further south, so we don't think it's Tabong. Anyway, getting in here was quite
hairy we had to use Google Earth. Google Earth was the only way of getting in
here because there are a number of reefs either side of what has turned out to be
a marked channel. They do have some markers here, so I think what we do is
we'll get into the dinghy later and we'll actually mark these and put them on
Navionics. Because according to Naviionics there is nothing here! We can now secure
the anchor and think about going ashore for the first time in quite a while. And
by that, I mean civilization. It's going to be odd...
So what we thought we'd do before we went ashore
was to go round to each of the lateral markers and actually
annotate them on Navionics which is one of the navigation applications that
we use on the phone. Because there's absolutely nothing on the charts at all.
So we figured this might help some other people. And what it means is racing
around in the dinghy and finding our actual GPS location and just making a
little note of each thing. And you can see right behind me as I spin round,
Liz is clinging on to what we are calling North Ladan Port 1. "OK, that
sounds pretty good to me..."
Central Ladan. It's a bit more...how shall I describe it? Bit more commercial I suppose than
Tarempa. There's lots of stores and there's a central mosque. And, of course, in the
central mosque are lots of children screaming, shouting and pulling faces. And
here they are!
Here is a typical local lady, doing some typical shopping, in a
typical little store. I thought I'd take you in, and see what we can find.
Oh look, here we go, "Apa kabar!" This is obviously a husband and wife, I'm
guessing. And she has some mango..."Terima kasih!" Mmmmm... this is so good
Lovely, really good. So it seems as if we can find pretty much most things we need
like garlic, potatoes, onions and then we've got a "Ikan Billis" which is the
dried anchovy which we love frying up. We've even found some wheat flour and
some groundnut, or peanuts which we like snacking on. And she's showing
me these strange crispy type things. I don't know what they are. "What is this?"
Oh, cumi-cumi. OK, it's squid. Squid-flavoured crisps.
I'm not sure I'll have those...
"Yeah, yeah. Fish." So they're all fish, they're all savory fish-flavored crisps.
We see them all over these shops. Then we've got limes, ginger, tomatoes, chili.
This is good.The reason why I'm recording this is because this is a bit
of a big deal for us. This is quite special that we are able to get hold of
this kind of a thing. "Hello!".
So that's Ladan. There's not much to it really. It's pretty
sort of... modern... sort of slightly industrial little town. But we have found
a rather splendid little restaurant here. When I say little, I actually mean big. Just
had our tea and coffee delivered. This restaurant is on a great big floating
boardwalk here. And then stited up there. And everywhere they've got nets
with fish and other seafood in them. So in between these little compartments
here, just down there...
Not sure what's in that one. We've got crabs in that one. Underneath the jetty,
here, underneath that part, they've got huge fish. I mean really big fish. But
what I like most of all is this irrigation system that the owner has
been tending. It's basically a whole load of plumbing pipes with holes
in them, and an irrigation system that allows him to water all of his plants.
Have a look at this. Along here is... it smells of celery.
It's like celery leaf. And then at the end he has lettuce. Look at this,
beautifully done, and in really good condition as well. So they've got lettuce all
the way around there. He appears to have chives, spring onions (something like that)
along here. More plants there. And as you can see, inside here, in this pool he has
some rather, rather big fish. (Need to change the filter, there we go)...
OK. They don't look so big from up here but I can assure you they are pretty big fish. And
the funny thing is that this restaurant is very, very big. It appears to
accommodate... you've got some tables up there, and then we've got the smaller
tables down here, which you sit around at on the floor. And then you've got this
huge area outside here. But you have to ask yourself who are all their customers?
And where do they come from? And do they ever actually fill this
place up with customers?
It's like they're getting ready for... an increase in
tourism that is yet to happen.
Towards the end here you can see fishing boats.
We've seen this many, many times now. They look very much like Thai fishing boats
actually, but they're not, they're Indo fishing boats.
And these guys will be
going out, I guess probably at evening time. Back out, which is east and out
through there into the open sea to do their night fishing.
We've just had barbecued fish, which is the fish that the guys on the FAD we
met in the previous anchorage gave us this morning. It was still alive this
morning, and we've had it this evening. And it was delicious. Very very tasty. And it got
me thinking. Because in the last couple of days we've eaten really well. We were
given the fresh squid by the same guys yesterday. This afternoon we went ashore,
and we did some shopping. There was a moment when in the fruit and veg store the wife
gave us slices of fresh mango, and I almost orgasmed (muffled laugh). It was incredible. But
it the thing was it struck me eating this mango, the sudden realization that
we were eating something fresh again. So it's really just a... The thing I was thinking
is obviously not to take food for granted, and to make the most of it. But
when you get fresh food like mangoes and squid and fish it really is...
You just can't beat it.
We've left the town of Ladan, having provisioned and stcked up with fresh
fruit and veg, which is always a luxury. And as you can see, we're now heading
across the bay. It is completely flat, calm. It's like a lake. Not a breath of
wind.What little wind there is is on the nose, of course, where else would it come
from? So we're just motoring across. As you can see behind me we are surrounded
by mountains, all the way around. These are basically lots and lots of little
islands. So we get this impression of being in the middle of a lake. Heading
towards a place called Moon Rock Bay, which was popularized by a cruiser who
named it Moon Rock Bay, so a lot of people try to get there. It's supposed to
be very pretty. Only problem is there's only room for two
boats. We've already bumped into a couple who tried to get in there and couldn't,
because they were two boats in there. What we're hoping is that of the other boats
that we know are in the Anambas (and there's only another five or six in this
area that we're aware of) they've gone in a counterclockwise direction, whereas
we're going in a clockwise direction. So we're kind of hoping that they have all
done Moon Rock Bay, and we're the last to do it. But we'll find out when we get
there whether we can get in or not. We have contingencies, of course, because
there's plenty of other places to anchor, and they're all relatively close by. I
think this trip we're doing now is not even five miles.
Lots of lots of options...