Stop 19: Lingga - Benan Island. October 26 2016.

It took us 7.5 hours to travel 36 nautical miles to Benan Island from Kentar Island. We anchored at 00 27.91N & 104 26.94E in 17 meters of water, with very good holding. Don’t sail to close to shore here, the rocks and reef stick out a long way.

This was our first festivity venue for quite some time and things hadn’t changed much. Same dancing, same speeches in Indonesian and similar food dished up, but a bit more seafood. We were however honored to be the guests of the celebration, which it certainly seemed like the entire village came out to watch. The girls dancing were beautiful as usual with lovely outfits on.

Most of the village lives out on the water and they live on stilts, the same as Kongka Besar. They are very creative and a lot of activity is on the jetty, including our restaurants where we had lunch and dinner. It’s a very picturesque place, with a very short walk to the northern side of the island bringing you to a glorious stretch of beach.

Our welcome ceremony caused great excitement amongst the locals. We think they all turned out on the jetty. We had noticed as we took the tender ashore to give Raymond our paper work there was a pole in the water with parcels attached to it. Part of our welcome festivities was for the kids to try jump off the jetty, try to swim up the heavily greased pole to retrieve a parcel, but it was too slippery for the kids to reach. Next was a fun canoe paddling race. They had ladies of the village rowing 3 of their canoes with 3 of our captain’s on board beating drums, it was causing much laughter and as so much fun.

Our dinner was in the school ground courtyard. What a humbling experience it was. Earlier in the day we had walked past the very run down building with dirt for the playground with a pole to play with. Rooms were bare, guttering was falling off to nonexistent, and the whole thing was just so run down. If you are reading this and wondering where to give your collected writing pads/books, pencils, rulers, etc this is the place. They could do with some assistance for their kids. At the time they had 100 students attending. We all chipped in some money to assist with a new building they wanted to build for the kids.

Extra Stop: Kentar Island, October 25 2016. Over night stop only. Equator Crossing.

The excitement building from an impromptu gathering last night knowing the equator was being crossed today was certainly still buzzing this morning.  We only took 3.5hrs from Konga Besar to drop anchor at Kentar Island as its only 15 nautical miles. We anchored at 00 03.29N & 104 45.47E dropping anchor in 10 meters with good holding. Upon entering the anchorage we were treated to a water spout in the distance. Certainly a sight to behold for those never seeing one, but quite the scary.

The fringing reef and out crop rocks around Kentar extend a long way out, give the corner as you come in a wide berth and don’t go in close to the shore as one of our rally boats discovered, there are some massive bommies here and again the reef is out a long way off shore!

We had some children come out for a visit. Not much English was spoken, but they seemed sweat enough, and didn’t hassle like some.

We stopped at the equator to celebrate, even dropping our anchor in 15 meters of water to do a few traditional antics such as: the Captain ran 3 times around the deck naked, we had a celebratory drink sharing a little with King Neptune – God of the Ocean and we both had a nudie swim together off the back of the deck. We shared the experience with El Gato and Kereru, what fun it was. Actually the sense of achievement was a bit over whelming.

We all celebrated once in the anchorage onboard the beautiful Serica. Everyone took along a plate and laughed the night away in the Northern Hemisphere.

Extra Stop: Kongka Besar, October 24 2016. Over night stop only.

What a gem this anchorage is. It took us 5 hours to sail 24 nautical miles from South Lingga to get here. We anchored at 00 04.55S & 104 51.58E in 11 meters with very good holding. No rolling, as the anchorage is very well protected. We did not go ashore here, but could clearly see the entire village on Kongka Kecil which seemed to all be on stilts in the water. It looked very interesting, and worth visiting if you have time.

Extra Stop: South Lingga, October 23 2016. Over night stop only.

This anchorage is awesome. We took 13.5 hours to get here from Panbatijang Island, covering 60 nautical miles. Dropping the anchor at 00 19.11S & 104 55.74E in 5 meters of what we think was sand. The bay is huge and very calm. We watched a crocodile swim from one side of the huge bay to the other: don’t swim here!

The channel between Lingga Island and Sunsa Island is very picturesque, but the current can run up to 3 knots. Take care to keep a look out for the floats as the local fishermen make the most of the water flow here for fishing. Make sure you watch out for the light house. It is extremely well kept, and if we had of had more time we would have gone for a walk up the stairs for a look.

Down the bottom of the bay was a village with spread out (we think) huts/homes on stilts. Worth a visit if you have time.

Extra Stop: Panbatijang Island, October 22nd, 2016. Over night stop only.

We had a good start to the day from NE Bangka to here, fitting in a good sail. We stopped at 01 09.18S & 105 17.93E dropping the anchor in 15 meters. Be very careful here. There is an extensive reef from our way points to the north and one of our fleet boats had his anchor wrapped around a rock/bommie. Apart from that is a glorious well protected spot. Some of the fleet went to Cebia Island, just South West of Panbatijang. Cebia is at 01 12.4S & 105 16.53E. Panbatijang is also known as Palau Pekacang – north anchorage on the west side and also on the west side on the southern end is Palau Tuju 01 10.453S & 105 18.054E.

We went for a look around and a snorkel from the anchorage. Most of the coral was dead and broken. However we still saw quite a few fish, 2 stingrays and one of our friend saw a huge maori wrasse. The place is littered with enormous rocks, some are in the water we snorkeled in which was quite the sight and the fish certainly seemed to enjoy the nocks and crannies.

Some of the fleet took their tenders over to the little beach and enjoyed some beach combing.

No internet or phone here at the time of our visit.

Extra Stop: North East Bangka, October 19 - 21 2016

Much to our delight and relief the anchorage at North East Bangka was calm and not a bit rolly. The 33nm journey from Parai Beach took us 6 hours, taking a wide berth around Mengudu Island as per instructions in our guide book. The area is not chartered particularly well and reports of needle coral was something we did not wish to rediscover. Please note don’t be tempted to sail between Mengudu Island and Bangka Island towards the anchorage, it’s littered with boulders and rocks awash.

We anchored at 01 30.43S & 105 52.74E in 6 meters of water over sand. Holding is very good. From Parai Beach, it is only 33 nautical miles.

The bay here is huge with little hazards, we cannot see any coral heads or reef. As we sat enjoying sundowners 5 other rally boats trickled into the anchorage after picking up their passports at Parai Beach as they also couldn’t stand the rolling, so they left.

Early evening many fishing boats came out and visited us and the other yachts in the anchorage. Not to sell anything, just having a look. We cannot see their villages so they must be set back from the water front. We are not sure about any supplies being purchased here.

The anchorage is very exposed to the north but during anything southerly it is a great spot to catch your breath before taking off again.

Stop 17: Parai Beach Resort, Bangka. October 18, 2016. We stopped here over night only.

We took 2 nights and 3 full days to travel the 368 nautical miles from Karimumjawa to Parai Beach, Bangka. We anchored at 01 48.37S & 106 07.92E in 5 meters of water. Good holding, in sand. We know its good holding because unfortunately the anchorage was abdominal.

We must have arrived right at the wrong time as quite a few of the rally fleet had been there for a week or more and the conditions where wonderful and calm. However, the day before we got there the winds turn from being offshore to an onshore breeze – S, SE’ly and the sea had understandably picked up. The swell was keeping all the boats beam on and the rolling was the worst we had ever seen and experienced in 6 years – and we have been in some shocking anchorages.

We did not sleep a wink. Bruce got up several times during the night to check we had not moved, we hadn’t. But one time was up he was nearly thrown overboard as the swell was pushing Matilda to the gunwales on both sides. Yes the rub rails where in the water and we had water on the decks from rolling so severely. Needless to say by first light we hauled anchor and left Parai Beach, Bankga bound for NE Bangka anchorage in the hope we could find a calm anchorage and catch up on some sleep.

Approaching the anchorage we had more flags, floats and massive structures to avoid. We were not so lucky during our second day of the trip to Parai Beach. We hit and snagged a double float. It frightened the living day lights out of us. Bruce had to dive in and remove the cord from both the rudder and the prop. No damage was sustained. The cord was made up of a poly tarp which had been stripped and braided to make a cord. Very clever, but very difficult for our prop cutter to cut it. Once this was cleared we then dodge about 3 more lots and could see in the near distance many more of them, we estimated around 30 that we could see. They are difficult to see as they don’t become visible until you’re nearly on top of them due the wavelets hiding them. We saw these double floats in mass just before we entered Selat Gelasa near the (island) Palau Kebatu approximately 45 nm’s south of the strait.

The large structures in the water where massive. The Indonesians live on them until they have enough fish to bring home to sell. They are prolific here and need your full attention, you do not want to hit one of these things. Some were lite and some were not! We started to see these massive fish traps once we were well north of the Selat Gelasa between Bangka and Belitung.

At the time approaching the anchorage we had to pass a massive dredge which we think was dredging for tin. The structure was absolutely huge, was anchored and had several boats around it. It was working and as it spat out the sand it was creating a new sand bank out of the water. The water was also very milky, making us wonder if the waters where being polluted and unsafe to swim in. We did not run our water maker here.