We had our sailing skills tested with the southerly passage from Hoga Island to Lowoleba, starting and ending with light winds which were mostly southerly meaning we were sailing into the wind for the first time since we left Melbourne. The saving grace was that the seas were incredibly flat which made the passage relatively comfortable.

Lowoleba is the capital city of Lembata regency and to my mind is nothing but a dirty, smelly place with considerable air pollution settling over the harbour each night. We stayed long enough to get some provisions and then decided to miss the festivities which were planned for the last two days of the scheduled time there. As we had arrived a day early we could not see the point in hanging around an unpleasant place waiting for the welcome reception.

Instead we spent a glorious couple of days at Kroko Atoll just west of Lowoleba. Nothing there except reef and a small sand spit, with a few islands in the background. The snorkelling here was very nice indeed, although the coral was a bit patchy. However, the reef that was there was made up of these patches of coral gardens- each one consisting of lots of different types of coral and inhabited by some very colourful small fish. Again the light was good and I spent ages just drifting above one garden that had schools of fish, each one a different colour: torquiose, electric blue, yellow, orange. Living art, really. It was distressing though to witness, for the first time, the locals fishing with dynamite- as you can imagine this not only stuns the fish but ruins the reef.

It turned out to be a good decision to miss the welcome reception at Lowoleba as we heard from the others that it was just awful- several hours in the back of a truck in the sun and dust (so much dust that they were given masks) to get to the village and then the festivities seemed to be more for the locals with the visitors feeling excluded. It was a very long day and they got back with about 30 mins to get ready for the dinner that night which was another bus ride away, making it difficult to leave early. Several people got food poisoning either from the lunch or the dinner.

After the idyllic stop at Kroko we decided to miss the next rally stop, another capital city, and day hop our way to Maumere- 80 nm away and where we need to renew our visas. This has proved to be a delightful stretch of five day hops to some picturesque anchorages. One of these, Serbete, was especially noteworthy. Another spot with just reef, a couple of sand (actually broken coral) spits and a large bushy rock with a lighthouse. The snorkelling here was probably the best so far- crystal clear water, large area of flat reef of dense coral (some of which was very brightly coloured- green, blue), and lots of fish, including a large school of small reef sharks (which apparently are relatively harmless). There was a full moon that night and no wind, so another gorgeous evening in the cockpit soaking up the ambience.

The other anchorage worth a particular mention was North Hading Bay- very pretty white beach, green trees, crystal clear water, and best of all no throng of “hello mister” children or adults wanting to sell us things or wanting us to give them stuff. I know that last bit sounds mean, but it does wear thin after a while. Phil went for a walk through the bush/forest one afternoon there and saw a bird of paradise and a monkey. We also saw some small monkeys on the rocks late one afternoon.

From North Hading Bay, we made the day hop to Maumere- another sail which reminded us how easy in general we have had it since leaving Australia. We had wind from all directions and from 1 knot to 20 knots so it was sails up, sails down, sails up, sails down, motor on, motor off. A fair bit of this day sail was spent with the wind “on the nose” so the boat was leaning over a bit – nothing of any consequence but we are just not used to it! We were a bit anxious of what Maumere would be like as it is the capital city of this regency so we were thinking that it might be a bit dirty etc like Lowoleba.

However, we were pleasantly surprised. The anchorage is not actually in the city harbour but is a few miles away outside a resort which is the nicest one we have seen so far. It is run as a charitable organisation with the profits going to local charities. Lovely setting with tables and chairs under the palm trees on the beach and excellent food for a very reasonable price.

We have visited immigration to put our visa renewal application in, and so now we wait about 4 days for that to be processed. In the meantime, we have re-provisioned (excellent market), caught up with friends, had dinner at the resort, and made use of telephone and internet reception (which we have been without for while). Today we have just returned from a two day visit to Moni, Kelimut and the three coloured lakes which I will tell you about in the next blog. It was a long two days and while it was nice to have an night away from the boat and to be in the countryside, it is also very nice to be back on our boat which is somewhat of a haven of cleanliness and easy access to a toilet!