Tanjung Gedong

Hi everyone,
We had a pleasant sail from Kroko Island to Cape Gedong today. We started off with a nice sailing breeze and even set the asymetric to help keep up with the bigger boats. We sailed the 30nm in company with the four French boats plus several catamarans from Australia and Austria. After about 3 hours of sailing we had to motor-sail to keep moving - the breeze was about 6 knots from astern. Happily we had the tide with us all the way.

Zen Again Track

Our hull cleaning activities certainly helped since we got 0.2 to 0.3 knot better boat speed at our usual cruising RPM. The engine seemed to be running more smoothly, perhaps due to the several barnacles removed from the propellor.

Tanjung (Cape) Gedong is a small promontory just west of Tanjung Kopondai at the eastern end of Flores Island. The little bay to its west has a nice little anchorage in 8-12m of water over coral rubble and some sand. We are anchored at 08 04.605S 122 50.722E. The vegetation ashore is more lush than the places we've visited previously, so presumably there's more rain here. Very dry and sunny at the moment though. A pretty anchorage.

Ananda and Shangri-La

Nice little anchorage

Zen Again

We went for a quick snorkle after arriving. A nice swim and quite a few colourful fish, but very little coral. After our swim the local village kids started arriving asking for handouts. We traded a couple of shirts for some coconuts but the others were apparently not interested in trade. Before leaving Kroko Island we bought some nice bananas from one of the local men. I think he made a killing over the last couple of weeks from Sail Indonesia yachts. Home delivered bananas are considerably more expensive than those in the market! :)

Tomorrow we plan to push on to Pulau Besar, another 30nm west.