Sailing – Karimata and Surrounding Islands

When we arrived at the Karimata Islands, we discovered a paradise of sapphire blue seas, palm-fringed islands and white sands, as well as coral gardens overrun by Nemo and his mates. It was terrific and quickly went to number one on our list of favourite places in Indonesia.

This tiny archipelago of little islands is a conservation area. Although it’s hard to say what is meant precisely by conservation in Indonesia, the site undoubtedly benefited from it. The snorkelling was excellent, by far the best we have done in Indonesia. There is hardly any dead coral, no rubbish to swim through, and clownfish by the hundreds. On one snorkel, I counted over 60 sea anemones with clownfish. [Kelly is not OCD]… thanks, Dwayne!

The area is not densely populated. The only fishing we saw in this area was line fishing from canoes and other small fishing boats. We didn’t see any big fishing boats. We did, however, see large fish, which is something you see little of in Indonesia when snorkelling. We saw our first shark as well. A small black-tip reef shark.

Pulau Karimata

The people we met were friendly as always. At Pulau* Karimata, we were visited by Wewen and invited to the island. The following day before Wewen turned up to take us to the village, we bought some squid from a fisherman and had him aboard for a coffee. Once in the village, we were taken to Wewen’s home and given tea.

We met Wewen’s wife, Saja Rina and daughter Alifvia Sybilla. Before long, many more people had turned up for a visit. We had little koalas for the children, which they all got quite excited about – even the shy children smiled at their koalas.

We needed some fresh fruit and veg, and we asked Wewen if there was a market. Wewen got a couple of scooters, and we went for a ride to a small supermarket. They didn’t have fruit and veg (only had some shallots, which I bought), but they had the second thing on our list (or first on Dwayne’s list) – beer. Beer on a small island was a surprise, and Dwayne left with a carton of beer and a happy little smile!.

We then went back to Wewen’s house for another hour before he took us back to Thorfinn. Our visiting fisherman was still anchored nearby, and as we paddled to the beach, Dwayne stopped by his boat and gave the fisherman a cold can of coke. We went ashore, had a swim and a walk, and moved on the next day.

Pulau Busung and Pulau Genting

We visited Pulau Busung and Pulau Genting, where we snorkelled and then paddled to the beach to explore. We noticed large lizard tracks everywhere. The following day, while having coffee on the deck, we saw the lizards on the beach. They are some sort of large monitor lizard… a water monitor as they went into the water and dived from our view.

Later that day, we had a visitor who, when I asked about the lizards, told me they were called beawak (assuming my Indonesian was correct and he knew what I was asking). We also had a visit from another fisherman, Ahmir. We traded two old working mobile phones for a mackerel. We also gave him a pair of sunglasses, some DVDs and a 1/3 bottle of vodka…. Dwayne was trying to trade for a chicken, but our chicken never turned up! I think we would have had to stay for another day to get it, and it was time to move on and see more of this beautiful area.

Pulau Bulu

We moved on to Pulau Bulu and had some more canoe fishermen turn up. We just wanted a break by this time, just to lie in the shade and read. Oh, the dilemmas of paradise! Dwayne paddled to shore with the guys and had a look around; I could see them climbing the trees for coconuts. They got us about a dozen coconuts which was fantastic.

I made some lunch and went to shore to join the others. The fisherman had their lunch which consisted of fried fish and turtle eggs… so much for conservation. We shared our lunch with them, and they offered theirs to us. Although Dwayne and I say we will try any food once, neither of us believes in the collection of turtle eggs for food, so we didn’t try an egg.

The island is uninhabited, but a dog appeared to live there. The fisherman said his name was Memo. He was adorable but timid, and we fed him most of our lunch. Later we paddled over to a nearby island to look around a deserted village. Apparently, the people come back to fish in the dry season. Memo, the dog, followed us over, swimming the whole way… he must have been hoping Dwayne had more food.

On this island, we saw turtle tracks and an empty turtle nest. Lots of different veg and fruit were growing on the island, cassava, chilli, banana and taro, to name just a few.

Pulau Balai

Pulau Panebangan

We moved to a place called Panebangan and were bombarded with visitors once again. We really just wanted to chill out with our books by this time. They asked us back to their village, and we said that we would visit tomorrow. This happened a few times, when the third lot of visitors arrived, we gave up and went with them to the village.

It turns out these were the fishermen that helped Shaun Sims when his boat, Australis ll, hit rocks near Panebangan. Shaun Sims gave the fishermen that helped him the salvage rights to the boat and everything left on it (to read the story about Australis ll see the link at the bottom of the blog). At the village, we discovered the shell of Australis ll. It had been gutted. We went and had a look through it. Sad to see what clearly was a beautiful boat in ruins. It reminded one of how vigilant one must be when sailing the seas.

The little fishing village is just a row of dwellings on stilts along a pier. We were taken to a house and seated on the verandah before receiving tea to drink. I believe most of the village people were there, and after a chat, Rudi’s wife gave us a huge bunch of bananas. All our fresh fruit was gone by this time, so these bananas were gold! We also bought a crayfish from Rudi, and then they showed us the room with all the spoils from Australis II.

We spent the rest of the afternoon bartering for a dinghy, an outboard motor, some dive gear, and some other bits and pieces, including rope blocks.

In the end, we parted with our dinghy and two motors and a big chunk of money for the things we wanted. We didn’t have the money with us, so we decided we would sail the next day, overnight and straight to Pontianak where we could put the money into a bank account (once we had withdrawn it from ours). That decided, we went back to the boat to relax with a drink.

While enjoying a bevvie on board with our new friends, we saw a wild pig across the next island. So Dwayne got his compound bow and set off with ‘Rambo’ to hunt pigs. He came back empty-handed, but I think he enjoyed getting his bow out!

Later that night, after we had retired to watch a DVD, Rudi turned up with a couple of cute little animals he’d shot. It turns out they are kancil (mouse-deer). After Dwayne took a photo, they went off to clean them, returning later with some of the meat for us. I cooked it the next day for dinner, and it was delicious and surprisingly not too gamey.

The following morning we were invited to one of the fishing boats for breakfast. Breakfast consisted of rice, fish cooked with chilli, crispy fried fish heads, and a crab as a special treat for Dwayne. Dwayne watched the chilli fish being made, and it has since become his “signature dish”, which is great because I can now say, ‘I’d really love your fish dish for dinner’ when I don’t feel like cooking!

After breakfast I spent the morning teaching English and learning Indonesian before we loaded our acquired goodies, and after handing out little koalas for the children (and adults) we bid everyone a farewell and began our sail to Pontianak.

Next up… Pontianak, problems and pirates!

P.S. Dwayne is saying a word here about Australis II hitting a reef. When I googled the yacht, I saw someone’s comment concerning, “How could you hit a reef with all the modern navigation aids that we have today? “Well, as we have cruised southwest Kalimantan, we have sailed past at least three big rocky outcrops that were not on any of the charts. You would not sail in these shallower areas at night and definitely not with a following sea.

P.P.S Dwayne caught his first fish in Indonesian waters.

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