November 12,2019 Kalig to Ambon...sailing into the unknown

We departed Kalig heading south for an overnight passage of 100 miles.  We had fair winds, calm seas,  a knot and a half of favorable current and a full moon to light the way. 

We arrived on the north coast of Seram at a small Atoll group of islands, Pulau Alai / Pulau Air.

This picture postcard location has an easy entrance on located on the east side of the reef.  In good light it is easy to see the contrasting hues of blues de-marking the deep water channel.   

It was a perfect stop after an overnight-er to rest and relax for a few days.

Kaija was thrilled with the snorkeling and saw more Blue spotted Rays here than she has ever seen at any one place.   

 The were slow and graceful and seemed quite willing to pose for that perfect photo.

She also found this lovely Anemone with it's resident Clown Fish.  To find the entire Anemone sitting out in the open with it's tiny resident poking his face out is quite unusual but made a perfect Kodak moment.

 

This Atoll feels a lot more remote than it is...we were only a couple of of miles of the coast and still had WI-FI.  There was very little traffic and we saw less than a handful a very friendly locals as we spent a day gunk holing and circumnavigating the wee islands in the atoll.  What a beautiful place to rest.

 Nov 16, 2019

A beautiful day beckoned us as we set sail west along the north coast.  We were delighted to be joined by a super pod of dolphins which seemed quite content to lay almost motionless as if sunning themselves...we did have one youngster who decided to get up close and personal and enjoy a wee bit of bow wave riding.

…that was the good news…but when we rounded the corner of Seram, now heading south,  navigation became quite interesting.  We were dodging the unmarked  FADS.  They can be quite large and were seemingly placed randomly everywhere!

These FADS are fine for local fisherman who have overfished these waters and are desperately trying to improve their odds, they know where they are…but for visiting yachts they are a real and present danger and a distinct hazard to navigation.  It is for this reason alone that transit as little as possible in these waters at night. 

 

We finally cleared the minefield of FADS and were able to sail our way down the Salat Boano channel arriving at a small cluster of islands just off the coast and within easy range of the Teluk Kayeli cut.  We anchored on the north side Pulau Latuanai in 50 ft. next to the island reef.

The next morning much to our surprise we were being hailed by a group of locals in their ponga.  And who should be in the bow by our Indonesian Agent Raymond Lesmana. 

Raymond lives in Bali but spends a good deal of his time traveling the islands in search of new places to introduce Cruisers who participate in his Sail 2 Indonesia Rally.  Altho we have been dealing with him for more than a year, we had never met in person.  It was good to finally meet.  He introduced us to Andri, a local chief along with his nephew and friends which turned out to be a fortuitous meeting. 

The following day after spending some time under the boat cleaning the hull, shaft and prop,  I discovered a new species of underwater critter that loved me.  I was their afternoon delight.  Unfortunately I have no pictures to show, but can only describe them as tiny shiny blue iridescent biters…these microscopic creatures appeared as if by magic out of the deep, numbering in the thousands…like tiny grains of sand…they were everywhere, and managed to invade even your most private parts, snacking voraciously all the way home! They were beautiful  to look at, but not much fun to interact with.  On exiting the water, my dive belt got loose…and sank.    It was late in the day so rather than search in the dark, I elected to tie my 15 lb. dumbbell to a float marking the spot. 

The next morning, to my chagrin, the float was gone.  Convinced that the only possible answer was that a local had come by and taken it,

I called Andri and he offered to come by and help me locate my dive belt.  He arrived with a boatload of eager young divers and for the next hour we scoured…no joy.

Meanwhile, Kaija up on deck, with binoculars in hand, spotted something white floating in the water a loooong way off…she Tasked the two remaining boys in the launch to take her out to see what it might be…sure enough…Kaija came to the rescue returning with our float and dumb bell still attached.  That tells you two things…the tide was higher and the current much stronger than we anticipated, and secondly, perhaps there was more than one dumbbell in this story.  And as luck would have it…on my next dive down…I found my dive belt.  We were all in good spirits, and Kaija rewarded our helpers with cold Cokes and new Sunnies.

The next leg of our journey could only be done in daylight.  The reason was we had to negotiate a tricky cut that separates the islands of Babi and Seram. With it's fast moving water and busy traffic and FADS it is quite the exercise...especially when you Chart-plotter indicates you are actually sailing over land???

 ...all the while trying to avoid colliding with local traffic and keeping steerage in 4+ knots of current...you know that old saying...Sailing is 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror...hahaha welcome to our world!

... and lets not forget those quarky FADS.  Most of these structures  are refrigerator size, but more and more we were seeing large floating bamboo structures known as BAGGANS. Trust me when I say, and I speak from experience... You do not want mess with these ungainly structures...they have lines going in every direction mooring them to the bottom, sometimes in hundreds of feet of water, they too are unmarked, unlit, and often unattended...in this 40 mile stretch we counted no less than 100 FADS…unmarked and unlit it demanded total focus and attention.  We luckily timed our passage thru the cut with favorable current and a minimum of traffic...all's well that ends well.

From there it is a straight shot down to Lain, a small island off the west coast of Pulau Ambon. 

We encountered many small fishing vessels and more FADS, but with good light and brisk wind we arrived safely in a protected deep water anchorage.

 This was a sleepy little fishing village and we enjoyed a couple of quiet days rest.

Our final leg of the journey was only 18 miles to a quiet anchorage located at Amahusu Beach. 

At first in the distance we saw what we thought was a lighthouse, a beautiful, tall white structure guiding us to the anchorage a short distance from Ambon city centre.  It turned out that the tall white structure was our first Taste of Christmas...it was a Giant White Christmas Tree.

That evening we had our first taste of Ambon, The Music City as 

this beautiful Tree was lit up and we were serenaded by the by the sweet dulcite sounds of carols being sung by a children's choir and broadcast out into the anchorage…how sweet the sound.

Return to Misool - New anchorages, The Cave and Kalig

Early on the morning of Nov 4,2019 we set off for our south bound day-sail to E. Misool.  We had 1 kt of current with us most of the way on an easy beam reach.  the sun was shining, the water, wind and waves were in perfect harmony. 

We were looking forward to checking out a new anchorage we had read about in the Delos Cruising Guide.

 It was in the SE corner of Tamulol Bay, well protected soft water in 25m of good holding sand.  The setting was idyllic, with rolling hills in front of us, numerous water inlets and light water traffic. 

There was an wee island just east of us where they were drying fish, luckily for us, the wind was blowing the right direction which kept both the smell and the flies at bay.

There were numerous opportunities for dinghy exploration and we spent many hours gunk holing and snorkeling.

The anchorage was a fair ways from Goa Cave, a Muslim Holy site, but due to the numerous Pearl farms located on this northern coast we were not able to anchor any closer to the cave.  We had a 4 mile dinghy run to get to the caves, but it was well worth the ride and only then did we discover that we could have anchored much closer, but it required either local knowledge or a scouting trip to determine the route thru the pearl farm nets.  No harm done, we enjoyed the dinghy ride and it was a worthwhile stop.

The final leg of the adventure to the cave wound thru Jurassic Park like surroundings and any moment we expected to see prehistoric creatures on the shore.  Alas, no such creatures but at the final bend we did find the Caves. 

There was no one there but us…it was quiet, almost reverently so.  We just stopped and enjoyed the beauty of these majestic surroundings and tried to grasp just how long they have been there and the historic value to the Muslim nation making it this valued Holy site.

We enjoyed our time here, it was a place you can easily spend many days before running out of new things to do and see. We highly recommend this stop.

From here we continued south for a return and final visit to a great wee anchorage on the Island of Kalig we had previously shared with our friends on Jams.

 

During our last visit there had been a mooring that we used, rafting up with our friends as space is limited. 

We were surprised to find the mooring gone, but replaced with a large floating diving platform.  We were reticent to use it and dropped our hook in the middle, and later on a much larger local fishing boat came in and tied on to this platform for several days.

This is an excellent stop for snorkeling and diving with the Misool Eco Resort only 2 miles away. Other than the fishing boat, we had the place to ourselves. We dove and snorkeled, and lazily took our time with last preparations for our first overniter in many months.  it was time to say farewell to Raja Ampat and set sail for Ambon and the Spice islands of Banda.