The next two rally stops after Ketapang were both beautiful islands, the true beauty of which was unfortunately obscured by the substantial smoke haze that was still hanging around.

Karimata was fairly low key, but enjoyable just the same. Our anchorage was next to a very small and quite poor village, one of only two on the island. Surprisingly, Karimata was holding their first ever festival at the time of our visit and one of the organisers told me that lots of people from surrounding islands had come for the festival. We arrived on the eve of the last day of the four day festival. Despite their poverty, they gave us a lovely welcome as we walked down the pier through a guard of honour formed by the local children who gave us lei’s made from used plastic cut into flower shapes.

On the last day of the festival, they had organised for some traditional children’s games which was followed by a community dinner to which we were invited. The games consisted of stilt races, and then races in their canoes.

Some of the rally children joined in and had a go on the stilts, and some of the rally adults joined in the canoe races, joining one of the local children as the second person in the canoe. Then some bright spark in the rally decided that we should provide some entertainment in return and organised a powered dinghy race, which brought squeals of delight from the locals.

The community dinner was gorgeous (lots of very fresh seafood), served at the dock with what would have been a sensational view if not for the smoke haze.

The next day we left for Belitung, breaking the trip at a little island only a few miles away to make the rest of the sail there more manageable.

As it turned out, we had a fabulous sail from there to Belitung, covering 80nm with an average boat speed of 7.6 kts. We were disappointed though to find that the smoke haze was no better at Belitung.

This is the island where the Dutch company Billiton was mining tin, and which was taken over by BHP in about 2002 I think to form BHP Billiton. Our anchorage was next to a seaside town apparently favoured as a holiday destination by Indonesians mainly from Java. We had an enjoyable time there, seeing more entertaining male Balinese dancers (there is quite a community of Balinese living there), and also a dance about the tin mining which was again different to anything else we had seen so far in Indonesia.

We also took a local boat trip, with a few other yachties, to the lighthouse that the Dutch had pre-fabricated from steel in Holland and constructed in 1882. On the way there we stopped at some very pretty spots- small islands covered in large granite rocks, and on the way back we stopped for lunch at a small resort on yet another island.

The locals had organised a day of activities for us which consisted of a city tour incorporating a visit to a junior high school (interesting), tin mine museum (level of interest depends on who you ask, and no English translations of the exhibits), and a traditional house (level of interest depends on who you ask) where lunch was served. From my point of view, the best part of the day was the air conditioned bus! It was such a relief to be in cool air for a change. At the school we were taken into the large assembly area were all the students were lined up to welcome us. For a few minutes, it was like us and them at 50 paces, until the youngest boat kid who is about 8 years old (Zac) with very very blond hair and pale complexion broke ranks and crossed over to start shaking hands with the school children. What a reaction that brought! I thought we were in for a riot. The school children were squealing and jumping up and down on the spot, and were all over Zac. The other boat kids followed and a period of controlled mayhem ensued.

We were able to visit the class rooms and the contrast between this school and others we had seen in the west of Indonesia was stark. This school had great classroom resources and was an award winning school displaying many trophies in the entrance.

We were treated to a dinner that evening organised by the local government with a number of dignitaries in attendance. I was very much looking forward to this dinner as it would be the last time that we were likely to see some of the rally participants for some time, as we were at the point where some participants had decided to check out early and take a different route north to Malaysia. So my intention was to mingle a lot and chat to those who were leaving. However, I was thwarted by the organisers who insisted that Phil and I sit at the table with the Regent, Vice-Regent, and the head of tourism. Not only did this cramp my style, but it made for a bit of an uncomfortable time as these guys did not have much English and the interpreter who was also at the table had a very strong accent and was hard to understand in the background noise. Our selection had not been random though as I had been asked earlier to make some comments on behalf of the rally participants. As it turned out, I was also the recipient of a gift, again on behalf of the participants. The gift was a very nice picture book of Belitong (but all in Indonesian) and a plaque of the town’s symbol (an uninspiring rock). Still the evening was quite pleasant- the food was good and the music and live singer encouraged dancing. We made it an earlish night and headed back to the boat as we had planned to leave that night for an overnight sail to start the 230nm trek to the next destination.