Gilibodo

Hi everyone,
Today we had a fantastic passage from Linggeh to Pulau Gilibodo. Fantastic because we sailed for 5 of the 9 hours during the 40nm passage. The wind was light and for much of the time we were hard on the wind. We had a great time helming manually to get the best out of the boat. What made it even more fun was "racing" first Jolie Brise (a Magpie 34) then Kakadu (a Rogeburg 45).

Zen Again Track

Zen Again GoogleEarth Track (not chart offset)

Our evening at Linggeh yesterday was fun. Soon after we arrived dugouts and other boats started arriving from the village with young and not so young folk visiting us. Some just wanted handouts, while others wanted to trade or sell goods. We bought bananas, mangoes, pawpaw and a coconut. We supplied several bags of kid's clothes to one older man and two young ladies in the hope that they would be distributed to kids in the village. The kids who behaved got a lolly, a pencil and some a notepad.

Some of the Sail Indonesia yachts don't seem to like having such visitors, but we enjoy the visits - perhaps because Nicki's Bahasa is quite good now. What we've discovered since arriving is that swimming goggles and sunglasses are the goods most frequently requested by adults. They would be very valuable in trading for fresh fish, fruit and veggies. Last night one family rowed a mile back to the village to get the fruit we wanted to trade for clothes for their kids. A trade both parties did well from!

Jolie Brise

Babar

Kakadu

Kakadu

Zen Again

The anchorage here at Gilibodo has 14 yachts this evening, with room for quite a few more. We're anchored just east of a "bar" of rock/coral which runs north/south well off the beach, providing a nice breakwater for the anchorage. The bar and channel inshore of it isn't shown on the charts, but can be seen (just) on GoogleEarth. We're at 08 22.066S 120 00.882E in 8m over sand and rock.

Gilibodo anchorage

Tomorrow we expect to move on to one of the major stops in Sail Indonesia - Labuan Bajo.