Indonesia...

We joined the Wonderful Sail 2 Indonesia Rally

which means that our paperwork for Indonesia is assisted with

(It has been the most difficult paperwork to deal with in all our travels!)

(There are 68 boats on this rally)

We left Hope/Thursday Island for the journey which took us 5 days, 

slowing ourselves down to ensure arrival in daylight.

We were very lucky, as many boats encounted lots of problems on the way here.

There were more fishing boats and nets than we have seen anywhere - a number of boats got tangled in nets, one boat lost their rudder.

We had 3 "hitchhikers" along the way, staying for a couple of days

On arrival, customs and Immigration were brought out to Our Rose by long boat

Once cleared, the local children came out

Recollection of our passports was completed ashore...

As you can see by all the smiles, everybody is incredibly friendly.

The town of Debut do not get tourists, so we are a real novelty!

S/V Sedna, S/V Chase The Cat and us decided to go touring so we organised a driver along with a English Speaking Guide (fondly known to us now as Captain Ron).

Cost for 6 hours for taxi and Captain Ron was the equivalent of $45 total!

We went to the markets

The children so excited to see us

Had a look at boatbuilding - they use 3 tools to build a boat!

Beautiful Cave Pools...

Swimming Area

On the way to a beautiful lookout walk, this village was completing this for a religious ceremony

Here there are two prominent religions (that live in harmony together!)

Catholic and Muslim.

On the way to the lookout the church

And these statues

       

A beautiful beach, where we had dozens of people run up to us and want a photograph with us

The local children were "valet parking" for our dinghys

Local boats heading out

There was a huge welcome ceremony for us...

Then off we went for a school visit

Richard speaking indonesian to the class

This was one of the english lessons they do...

(My favourite song!)

These fishing structures are our amazing - out at sea they are very hard to see, as they are not well lit

We were so thrilled this morning and went out to greet the "rudderless yacht"

finally arrived after being rescued by other cruisers