Year 2- 17 August 2025 –Hoga Island -Wakatobi- Indonesian Independence Day

Happy Indonesian Independence Day -17 August 1945- congratulations to them.

We slept well having had a long night’s sleep. It was a greyish day and still blowing about 20 + kts. We enjoyed our tea and breakfast admiring the islands and reefs which surrounded us. We relaxed and read and just looked, deep in our own thoughts and it felt good to be here. Crawford came at about 8.45am from the near boat Naupulos and he helped me to take the carburettor apart from the 4.4 engine which had been repaired in Ambon and had stopped again we assumed due to dirt in the carburettor. We took it apart and put it back together and tried to start it. It did not work. I then fiddled with the spark plug lead and tried again and it fired. It may have been the spark plug lead all along. The main thing is that it seems to be working so that’s a relief. We will need to give a run again when we take the other outboard off.

Dan the local in his long boat came early about 9.30am and he was taking us snorkelling. He was quite happy to wait and said the tide was low and could he wait. We of course said yes. We got ourselves organised as we planned to go snorkelling and Dan then took us round the island and around the reef and we anchored at a point on the reef. We got out and we were on the edge of the reef. The edge of reef plunged down into the depths where it darkened and became a deep blue and then black. I swam along the edge of the reef and I have to say the coral was magnificent. This snorkelling was some of the best I have done for a long time. The quality and conditions of the coral was great and the size of some of the coral was some of the largest I have seen. The fish life went with it. There were fish of all sizes and colours and they swarmed the reef. We had a fantastic swim for about 45 minutes along the reef and I took some good video footage. It was a great experience and something I will always remember.

We returned to Stormbird and changed and then got back in Danny’s boat and he promised to take us to the Sea Gypsy village called Sama Bahari. This was an amazing sight as it was effectively a village of about a 1,000 people living on houses on stilts and coral stone supports. It was one of the poorest places I have been to. I say houses most of them were shacks of wood with wood piles/stilts. They had built a lot of coral stone type piles in a sort of pyramid fashion which supported the infrastructure. There were narrow water alleys between the rows of shacks and it was clear the tide was low. In fact as Danny brought us to the village he had to go over some very shallow areas and he slowed the boat down at these points. I would say we had inches or centimetres underneath us.

The people in the village were very friendly and all say hello. They came up and shook our hands or held our hands as we walked along. The walkways were just wooden walkways and we had at times had to be careful as to where we walked. There were gaping holes from time to time and certain areas clearly needed strengthening. We walked past various shacks and then the town hall -which itself was a wooden shack. We came past a mosque with what I assumed was an Imam outside. We walked on and across walkways some better than others. We eventually came to Danny’s family house. We ordered some lunch but he suggested he show us further round the village until lunch was ready. We wondered round seeing lots of the villagers and their dwellings in various states of repair. It was quite an experience for us and we interacted with the villagers. This is one of the poorest places and yet they are all happy and friendly and seem to be having a good life. We can all learn from this. There is no social security so they have to fend for themselves and they do not moan and get on with it.

We returned to Danny’s house via various walkways and sat down at a wooden table for lunch. We had sticky rice, noodles in soup, fried eggs, fish on skewers and it was all delicious. What a treat and it cost us £5.

Once we were finished we went back to Danny’s boat which had a precarious plank we had to walk over until we could climb down a wooden ladder (tied with string) into Danny’s boat. It had a single piston Chinese engine which he had wind up to start with a handle until it went and then it chugged away. Every now and then he felt the water outlet to check it was not overheating. As the tide was so low we had to go round the other side of the village and into the deeper channels to get into the water which took us back to Stormbird.

When we got to Stormbird we had a beer with Danny and then he left and we chilled out. I then prepared my red cabbage Stormbird dish with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Jon then prepared a stir fry which we had with couscous. We had had a great and memorable day.

We plan to move on tomorrow to Wangi. The picture of the day is an example of the stilted houses.

Need/Opportunity Year Three

In year three I will be going from Thailand to Sri Lanka, India, Maldives and then on to Chagos, Mauritius, Reunion, Cape Town, St Helena, Azores and back to the UK. I am looking for crew from Mauritius/ Reunion Island to Cape Town and from Cape Town to the UK. If of any interest do email me.

The blog will continue as we continue the journey. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog then do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com