Yahoo, finally a Wahoo!

Finally, Laurie caught a fish!

We caught a lovely wahoo fish while sailing on the way in to Exmouth this morning.  We have been day sailing the last 4 days between Dampier and Exmouth.  We have just arrived at the Exmouth harbor and have tied Katmai to a dock for the first time in two months.  Yippee, shore power and fresh water from a hose....aaaahhhh.

Exmouth is on the northwest-most corner of Australia and is about 730 miles from our ultimate destination, Fremantle.  The area is famous for the Ningaloo Reef and whale sharks, so we may spend some time here exploring before heading on to Fremantle.

During our trip from Dampier, we had three overnight anchorages, the first night at Eaglehawk Island, about 16 miles west of Dampier.  The second night we anchored at Great Sandy Island, which was about 67 miles from Eaglehawk Island.  The third day we sailed another 70 miles to Serrurier Island and then today, the last leg in to the harbor at Exmouth which was about 35 miles.



Sunrise departure from Eaglehawk Island

Ok, the story of the fish.  Our fishing success has become a bit of a joke as the only luck I had catching fish was to purchase them from local fishermen along the way :). 

But finally today, while sailing at nearly 8 knots between Great Sandy Island and Exmouth, we hooked a nice Wahoo, which is in the Mackerel family. This fish must have been desperate if he actually went for my lure, given I have trolled for hundreds of ocean miles with no luck.



Sunset from Great Sandy Island was brilliant.

Our fishing technique while sailing consists of 300 feet of 300 pound test line, then a long wire leader and a lure of some sort.  We caught this fish on a nice large and very pink plastic squid!  We tie the 300 lb test off on the boat with a length of bungee cord, and when that cord snaps tight (indicating fish on) we simply wind the free end of the line on to a winch and grind her in, not even slowing down.  This is definitely a fishing for meat sort of activity, not so much sport.  But we will enjoy the fish immensely.  In fact, Eric is making mackerel sushi for dinner, and I am sure we will be eating lots of fish in the coming days…but thankfully Katmai has an excellent freezer as well.



Thousands of seabirds on the northwest shelf.

Humpback whale spy-hopping in the distance

Our trip from Dampier was delightful.  I am so glad that we opted to day sail though the islands and reefs rather than go offshore and sail around the clock.

The second and third days we saw numerous pods of humpback whales, many of which put on a fabulous show of breaching, spy-hopping and flipper flapping.  I bet we saw more than 50 whales total.



We also saw our first sea turtles, both at sea and around our boat while at anchorage. And the bird life was fabulous, with hundreds seabirds of many species all around us.

We have not seen this sort of abundance of sea life since we left Alaska.  What a fabulous coast.

Dampier, Australia

Desert Sturt Peas are vibrant signs of early spring.

This area of Australia’s northwest coast is the hub for Western Australia’s hydrocarbon, salt and iron ore shipping.  It is a very industrial area, with huge loading docks spread out over a long peninsula and with that an endless stream of large freight ships. 

It also is a very beautiful place and a very special place for the local indigenous peoples.  The countryside is very dry, almost desert like, but this time of year nature besprinkles the land with colorful wild flowers.  The topography is mainly low hills of red granite boulders with the occasional oasis of green trees and splashing spring water.  The coastline consists of a myriad of small rocky islands and reefs in a clear blue sea.



Katmai(distant center with tall mast) anchored
in Hampton Harbor, Dampier

We are anchored deep in a bay called Mermaid Sound in front of a small yacht club and the little town of Dampier.  The anchorage is full of moorings for the small work boats that support the industrial undertakings on the peninsula.  The anchorage also is the temporary home of four cruising yachts, including Katmai, that are looking for the next weather window to sail on to various destinations and dreams.

View from the upper deck of the
Hampton Harbor Boat and Sailing Club

The local sailing club, Hampton Harbor Boat and Sailing Club, has been very welcoming and we are fortunate to have access to a dingy dock, clothes washer, shower and lovely restaurant and bar with a fantastic view of the harbor.

A large kangaroo petroglyph near Deep Gorge

We had the good fortune of spending a good part of a day with a guide from one of the local indigenous tribes, Clinton Walker of Ngurrangga Tours .  This area is known for its aboriginal rock art chipped into the red boulders by local native peoples over a period of some forty thousand years. 

Lovely Ghost Gum trees stand in contrast to the red granite hills

A spring in Deep Gorge, the rocks have thousands of petroglyphs

The area is estimated to contain about a million pieces of rock art and is considered the largest collection of rock art in the world.  The rock art depicts the life of the local indigenous people and conveys what there is to hunt for food, how it is hunted and also conveys stories of life, creation and spirits.  To see the rock art one has to go into the ‘bush’ and explore the rocky hills.   Clinton painted a passionate story for us about the life of his people, from long ago before the arrival of Europeans to the present, as we scrambled up boulder strewn hills and valleys.  They had a hard life here, but understood the balance of nature and the food could supply.

We also had an opportunity to visit the historic village of Cossak, and the regional art festival last Sunday.

 

Komodo Island, Indonesia to Dampier, Australia

Departing Komodo Island, Indonesia on the morning of July 5th.

We departed Indonesia from the Komodo Village area on July 5th and headed back to Australia. It took a couple days waiting in Indonesia to receive official confirmation from the Australia Border officials regarding our notification of intent to arrive in  the port of Dampier on or about the 10th of July. Once we got confirmation, we departed.

The 750 mile trip to the northwest coast of Australia would take 5 or 6 days of around the clock sailing, plus or minus.

We had been looking at the weather forecasts for the Timor Sea for several days, as it is important to pick a ‘weather window’ that avoids the ‘re-enforced trade winds’ if at all possible.  When a strong High Pressure system develops over Australia, it acts to compress the pressure gradient over the Timor Sea, and the normally 10-20 knot easterly trade winds can easily become twice as strong.  We found a reasonably good window for the second week of July, but knew the winds would be picking up as we approached the Australia coast.

Our first two days out were magical trade wind sailing.  Warm weather, clear skies and a nice 10-20 easterly wind made for a nice sail.  We skirted to the west of the large island of Sumba, (Indonesia) and saw several large squid fishing boats more than 40 miles offshore during the dark, moonless night.  Encountering local squid (fishing) boats at sea at night is difficult as they carry only large white lights, no navigational lights to indicate which direction they are headed.  As it was, we never came close enough to one to worry.  

Day 3 was nearly windless, with the wind dying at 6 am abruptly and not going over 2 knots until about 8 pm. Like magic, we motored through a small cloud bank and once again, the easterly trade winds started to blow.

The first 3 or 4 nights out were just jam packed with flying fish…The 3^rd morning out, there were more than 20 on the deck after a night of jumping in our bow wake.

The 4^th day, the wind slowly swung to the south, so we took the opportunity to sail to the southeast, as we knew the next day, stronger winds directly from the east were due.  Making easting now, in lighter winds would allow us to sail with a more favorable (comfortable) wind angle once the winds built.

Thursday night, we were once again headed straight south towards Australia and the wind slowly built.  By morning, it was howling pretty steady in the upper 20’s, gusting in to the upper 30’s (knots).  We were sailing under a double reefed main and staysail, hard on the wind (close hauled), going straight south towards the coast of Australia.  The seas were huge, breaking and coming at us every seven seconds or so.

At sunrise, we lowered the main entirely and turned down wind another 20 degrees, aiming right for our destination (Dampier) and sailed the rest of the way with just our smallest sail, a staysail alone.   I must say, it was a bit of a frightening experience for us both when Eric needed to go forward to the mast, climb up several feet to drop the main. Once finished, he needed to time his decent to wait for waves to wash over the boat, before dashing back in to the cockpit.  We spend most the next night and day with the washboards in tight, to keep water from the odd wave from splashing in below decks.

We needed to average 6 knots for the next 24 hours to get in to Dampier during the daylight hours.  We had no trouble making that rate, in fact it was a bit of a challenge to slow ourselves down in the high winds, despite hardly having any sail up.  It was a long night of high winds, we had about 10 minutes of 45 knots plus, and most of the night between 35 and 42 knots.  We took shortened shifts, to allow each other more rest as keeping watch was pretty fatiguing.  Even sleeping was a challenge, given the motion of the boat.

Katmai did fine, but we were sure glad to round the Burrup Cape at day break make our way down the Mermaid Bay, towards Dampier.  Twenty-five miles down the bay, it was still gusting more than 30 knots in the harbor when we picked up a mooring in front of the Hampton Harbor Sailing Club.

It has been a windy week here along the northwest coast, and we are staying put until it moderates.  Next Stop, likely Exmouth, about 200 miles to the southwest.  Until then, we will surely enjoy all that Dampier has to offer!

Komodo National Park - There ARE Dragons in those hills

A big female Komodo Dragon, basking in the sun.

We spent a couple weeks in Komodo National Park, and enjoyed greatly the opportunity to get off the boat and hike a bit.  We took guided hikes on both Rinca and Komodo Islands.  They say it is not safe to hike on your own, due to the Komodo dragons, and it was of course interesting to learn about the area and wildlife from our guides.  It was great to get some time to explore on the shore. 


View from the Komodo Ranger Station



We were fortunate to see five ‘dragons’ during our hikes.  They are really quite impressive, and apparently hunt mainly deer, but also water buffalo, wild pigs and other prey.  On Rinca Island, we saw lots of wildlife, including monkeys, fruit bats, water buffalo and many birds of prey.

The Komodo Dragons are a very large species of monitor lizard, found on only five islands in the area. They are huge, growing up to 10 feet long and weighing up to 150 lbs.  Meat eaters, they lay in ambush of large prey.  Only four to five thousand dragons live in the wild.  Only about 350 breeding females remain in the population .  The Komodo National Park was formed in 1980 to address concerns of the declining population.

Local merchants ready to make a deal as we are trying to anchor

Once we moved on to the larger Komodo Island, we were near a village, so we had a lot of visitors trying to sell us pearls and wooden carvings of Komodo Dragons.  As we turned the corner in to the main bay near Komodo Village, we immediately received the attention of more than a dozen local boats and canoes.  There were no other foreign yachts in the area that we saw anyway, so the arrival of one was a big event for the local merchants.



More pearls and wooden carvings to sell.



Everyone was looking to make a deal, and they were mostly selling pearls and wooden carvings....although one  bright local entrepreneur was selling cold Bintang (a good local beer), chips and other food items.  One boat showed us the way to a local vacant mooring, and soon we had a dozen or more boats hanging on to our boat trying to make a sale.  A common refrain is 'one-by-one', which is a request to buy something from everyone, loosely translated as 'please don't spend all of your money with one merchant'"! Lynn, every time I hear the locals call out 'one-by-one' it reminds me of you and your business name.   Needless to say, we did end up purchasing more pearls than I could ever possibly wear...and we have a few wooden dragons on Katmai too (and a couple of Bintangs of course)!

Beautiful moon over Komodo Village from our mooring. 
Can't beat this view for a 'sundowner'.

 



Run, climb, bite, swim - the Komodo Dragon, the world’s largest Lizard!

 

It feels like we are in Jurassic Park!  The ‘dragons’ here grow to an impressive size of ten feet and 150 pounds. It can sprint up to 20 mph, climb trees, dive to a depth of 15 feet and devour a deer in short order. Komodo, where the dragons live, is also a region in the Indonesian archipelago that consists of some 30 arid volcanic islands. Most are uninhabited, as a matter of fact only about 4000 people call the Komodo Islands 'home'. Today, most of the islands, associated reefs and bays are part of a large National Park, which is listed at UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Sunset view with the volcano Sangeang steaming in the background

There were 'barking' deer, wild goat,
eagles and much more on the beach

This is a spectacular area; made up of aquamarine tropical waters that are so clear one can see the sea floor seventy feet down,  dry volcanic islands that are mostly inhabited by dragons, deer, wild boar, Eagles, flying foxes, monkeys and, yes, snakes (including the Cobra) and colorful reefs that make this a scuba divers dream. With that, however, comes a continuous traffic of dive boats. Since many of the best anchorage spots are now off limits to dropping an anchor the only remaining option is being lucky enough to pick up one of the very few permanent moorings that the World Wildlife Fund installed. The area desperately needs more moorings to accommodate the visitations to this incredible park.

Our first few days and night in the Park were spent in a bay named Teluk Batu Montjo, which is on the northwest tip of Komodo Island. It was a spectacular spot, clear water, no dive boats and a sunset view.  We had the place to ourselves for three days, a big change from villages full of children and the tourist crowds of Gili Aer and Bali.

 

Beautiful rocks too!

Looking west towards the setting sun is the island volcano, Sangeang. It is an active volcano continuously venting steam from its top and it sports the textbook volcano shape, a cone rising out of the deep blue tropical ocean. Looking from Teluk Batu Montjo the sun sets just off the steaming volcano's southern slopes, an incredible sight for our ritual sundowner hour. Teluk Batu Montjo bay teams with colorful reef fish and in the early mornings we were rewarded with the sight of a handful of gracefully 'flying' Manta Rays in the clear waters around Katmai.

Gili Lawa Laut and Gili Lawa Darat Islands
looking south towards Komodo Island

 

Gili Lawa Laut, our next stop, is a small island on the north eastern tip of Komodo Islands. A favorite stop for dive boats, so we counted our luck as we entered the bay and one of the three moorings was just being vacated by a dive boat. We spent four heavenly days there, swimming, reading, hiking up the islands crest-line and yes more sunsets.

Katmai on a mooring off of the island of Gili Lawa Laut

 

The dive boats and their western passengers of course attracts also local boat merchants selling woodcarvings of dragons, pearl neckless', Dragon teeth, decorated wooden bowls, etc. These local merchants pull alongside visiting boats with their long and narrow beam, locally built boats. These boats are built of solid teak timbers and sport a very small diesel engine that goes put, put, put....and is started with a hand crank, no electric anything on these boats! One of these merchants, Eggj and his brother Iwan, approached Katmai shortly after we picked up the mooring and we bought a few things from them. Our interaction with Eggj and Iwan was, I hope, beneficial for all of us. One morning I asked Eggj if he could get us a nice fresh fish? He asked "how big"? I said "about this long".

Laurie cleans the fish we bought from Egj.

An hour later he came back with a beautiful fresh whole Emperor fish. He must have bought it from one of the local fishermen, who we see in their small dugout canoes fishing the reefs all night long, as there is no village in the area. That was one tasty fish for us that evening and the next.





Egj and Iwan's 'water taxi' taking us from our
 anchored boat to Labuan Bajo city to get supplies

Egj and Iwan now have become our local 'support'. They followed us all the way to the town of Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores. We just got our anchor down near Labuan Bajo when they motored up to Katmai. While still in Gilli Lawa Laut they asked if we might need diesel on our arrival in Labuan Bajo, I confirmed that we did. That is all it took, they were not going to miss that opportunity.  It was a great benefit to us is that they deliver the fuel in jerry cans to our boat at anchor and we don't need to haul the diesel to the boat in our dingy, or even worse tie up to a commercial dock and deal with significant time and paperwork. Sweet! Within a few hours our diesel tanks were full! We then made arrangements with Egj and Iwan for a water taxi ride on their boat for early the next morning. We needed to do a shopping spree to resupply Katmai's food stores. In the morning Iwan guided us through town to a local market, where he helped us communicate with the market staff, insuring we got the right change back and organizing a taxi back to the harbor for us and all our bags of food and a case of beer. In the meantime Egj got our laundry to someone for washing. After the shopping, Laurie and I walked for a couple of hours through town on our own. It is a different world!



Port city of Labuan Bajo, Flores Island

Labuan Bajo, is the biggest town in western Flores and the main hub, is a jumping off point for tourists visiting the Komodo National Park, its Dragons and its spectacular reefs. Bajo, as the locals call it, is a small town, with a few streets, no stop lights, a tourist Main Street of dive shops and a few restaurants. It is a town with apparent poverty, despite being the center for the Komodo tourist industry. Based on things now in ruin, the town has seen days of greater affluence in its past. The people on the other hand are lovely! Big smiles are common and so are friendly greetings.

We bought a papaya from a few women sitting on the ground selling veggies and fruit displayed out on some cloth. They did not speak English and we do not understand much Bahasa Indonesian, so the ensuing communication regarding the price of the papaya ended in much hearty laughter and many smiles. We understood 50,000Rp (5$), which is way too much, but they were really only asking 15,000Rp (1.5$), which more than fair for this large and beautiful papaya. Isn't it always so? It is the people who make the place.

The harbor of Labuan Bajo makes you feel like it you have been transported back to the late 1800s.  Based on the multitude of very large wooden sailing ships it surely does not feel like it could be the 21st century. The harbor is full of wooden ships of all shapes and sizes, most come with some sort of sailing rig, many are schooners, some are... well I am not sure what, but they are all unusual and interesting. Many are small and some are very big and look like could ply the world’s oceans with the best of Walt Disney's pirates. But then, the 21st century is never that far away as this evening a modern super yacht arrived and anchored in the midst of the 'pirate' ships.

"Hey Mister, Hello Mister!"

"terima kasih, mister" Thank you, mister!
School boys wave goodbye
and thank us for the notebooks and pencils.

One of the most pleasurable things about our voyage through eastern Indonesia has been meeting the people.  The children  are especially delightful, and invariably run for their dugout canoes and paddle out to us as soon as they see us setting the anchor....as they approach, they smile, and wave and yell "Hey Mister, Hello Mister".  It is tradition for traveling sailors to bring small gifts for the local children, and we brought along a lot of school supplies, note books, pencils, pens.  Generally it is just the local boys that show up, but sometimes girls as well. 

Often, a local boy will paddle out with some fruit or drinking coconuts to trade for some perceived treasure on board Katmai.  We have traded everything from fishing lures, fishing hooks, clothing and cash (if they prefer) for what they bring, if we can use it and generally we can.



The children that visit us at anchor are often very young.

Thanks to the generosity of the Fremantle Sailing Club and their donors, we also had several duffle bags of hats, shirts, and shorts sized for children.  In addition, the large bag of used soccer balls (footballs) have been a big hit.  Generally when we gave away a football,  the children played for hours on the beach.
 


"Oh Boy"  Yelling to friends on shore as they
 paddle back to the village. 
This of course means more children are on the way!

 
 

Paddling out for a visit using sticks
as oars for the outrigger dugout canoe

 

Peeking over the side of Katmai,

standing in their canoe

Gili Aer to Komodo National Park - 300 miles east

It finally feels like we are cruising.  We are relaxing in sunbaked anchorages, surrounded by spectacular mountainous volcanic islands, and turquois blue, clear water that is teeming with coral and very colorful fish.  We are now in Komodo National Park and our plan is to stay in the park and its numerous islands until we head back to Australia mid to late July. 

We departed on our local 300 mile or so journey to Komodo National Park from Gili Aer, Lombok on June 11.  We anchored in five overnight anchorages, sailing during the day.  We stopped at Gili Lawang, Moyo Island, Kananga, Kilo and Wera Bay before making the hop across to Komodo Island on June 18.

Gili Lawang

A calm evening at anchor over the black sands of Gili Lawang

The anchorage at Gili Lawang is a sheltered area between the main island of Lombok and the smaller island of Gili Lawang.  Set offshore of a small village, it must be a squid fishing paradise judging by the large numbers of very big squid boats that fished around us all night with their very bright spot lights shining on the water to attract their prey. 

 

 

 

It was our first ‘black sand’ anchorage.  The dark nature of the volcanic sands make it very difficult to judge water depth visually, which is nerve wracking when coming in to shore from the sea. 

 

The sunset at Gili Lawang was like a watercolor painting

We found a nice spot, and were the only sailboat anchored off the village that night.  In fact we saw no other sailboats all day, something that we would get used to, but for now seemed strange.  The scenery from the anchorage in the evening as the sun set was just stunning, beautiful lush green complex hillsides that sloped upwards in to the clouds that shrouded the volcanic peaks. 



A beautiful fishing canoe, Gili Lawang

There was the most incredible local fishing boat, an outrigger canoe, that came near in the evening light.  The yellow, white, blue and black canoe was different than any we saw to date, with an outrigger on only one side.  It clearly is well loved, judging by how it gleamed in the evening light.

 

 

Moyo Island

Coconut Palms in the evening light on Moyo Island

We arrived at Moyo Island the next day and liked it so much, that we stayed for 3 nights.

The southern have of Moyo island is a national park area, without a real village, just a few local fishing huts.

The northern half of the island has a very exclusive resort, the Amanwana.  It consists of 20 amazing tents and a very large public area for the restaurant.  We took our zodiac over, anticipating a nice lunch ashore, but the asking price of 100 USD each,( for lunch!) made us change our minds.  The staff gave us a tour and explained most of their guests came for the diving, and bragged that British Royalty were fond of the spot.  I looked up their website later to see that a 3 day visit is in excess of 4000 USD.  Seems hard to believe a place like that could exist in such a remote location.  It was lovely though!

Local fisherman, hand-lining from a dug out canoe

Our boat was anchored about one mile away around the corner from the resort, offshore of a nice grove of coconut trees.  Before long children of the local fishermen came out to barter drinking coconuts for whatever they could negotiate for in trade.  We were also happy to trade for some local Bonito (small tuna like fish) that were jumping everywhere in the bay.  Yummy.  Our offshore trolling for fish was not going well, and these were the first fresh fish for us this trip.



Bonito for dinner.. from the local fisherman!

In the evening, the water here glowed with thousands of star like bluish spots of fluorescence.  I have never seen anything like it before. Looking down in to the water next to the boat, there were an amazing variety of flashes of light.  Long bold deep streaks of some larger animals and smaller near surface ‘blebs’ of light.  Very surreal indeed on this moonless night it was almost impossible to tell the stars in the sky from the animals in the sea.

Moyo Island is a magical place, we loved it there.  It was also nice to be in a park, away from a village area.   We enjoyed the privacy and spent 3 days reading and snorkeling and enjoying the incredible natural surroundings.  The island is known for its monkeys and ‘barking’ deer.  While we did not see either, we surely heard plenty of jungle noises every night…together with the fluorescence ocean life everywhere in the sea, it all added up to a very strange and exotic place, especially after dark.

Kananga Village




Nice sailing! 
 View of Tambora volvano on Sumbawa.
Tambora erupted in 1815 and brought a
global 'year without summer' due to
the large volume of ash released.

 

Katmai underway in 10 knots of breeze...Nice!

We anchored off of the small village of Kanangas for one night.  It is known as a stopping off place to go to visit the nearby island (2 miles) of Satonde, which is a volcanic crater that hosts a green saltwater lake.  Unfortunately, the day we came through, the wind was blowing at 20 plus knots too windy for a dingy ride across the open channel and too rough to try and anchor Katmai next to the crater island. 

The wind made for a great sail though, and we saw numerous pods of pilot whales and dolphins.

So we gave the lake a pass.  We traded with some locals for bananas and papaya and gave away more hats, shorts and shirts to young boys who paddled up in their dug out canoes full of smiles and laughter.  We only stayed the night and left about 6 am, when the sun was just above the horizon. The sail to Kilo was going to be a long day, so we needed to start early.

That evening at sunset, we were surprised by 100s of ‘flying foxes’, fruit bats, that flew over us, from mangroves on Satonde and over to the main island of Sumbawa.  They are huge, and at first glance look like large slow moving owls in flight, but sure enough they are bats and with a wing span of up to nearly 4 feet, I was glad to sleep below deck that night!  Spooky!

 

Kilo

The village of Kilo sits in a very small bay within a larger bay on the north side of Sumbawa Island. On the way there we passed yet more large volcanos that clearly formed the island, not that long ago. 

We gave out dozens of paper school pads and pencils to the seemingly endless stream of dug out canoes with children.  They were very happy with the little gifts, shouting and yelling to their friends onshore, waving their little treasures, even doing happy dances on the way back to shore.  Again, we stayed only for the night, having arrived in late afternoon after a nice sail to the anchorage.  We were pleased to find the local winds in the bay from the north, which allowed us to head directly to the anchorage and not have to tack up wind in the normally predominately east to southeast trade wind.  We expect some sort of local sea breeze was blowing, influenced by the huge topographic relief on the volcanos.


A Fish Attracting Device (FAD).  Very common features
 (to avoid) in the local waters.

On the way in to the anchorage, the area was full of FADs, Fish Attracting Devices.  These are unlit, floating collections of drums, bamboo and other miscellaneous bits.  The locals use them to attract fish, and often fish near by.  They are, difficult to see, and impossible to see at night. No night time sailing in our future. They must be effective, because we have seen literally hundreds of these, often miles from shore.

Wera Bay

Village of Wera, located on the northeastern shore of the
Island of Sumbawa.

The last anchorage on our journey east across the island of Sumbawa, Wera Bay is known for its boat building.  Apparently the specialty of the village is the manufacture of rather large wooden ships and several thatched sheds on shore loosely concealed the hulls of at least six huge boats, and many smaller vessels.  The boats are built in the traditional way, with only wooden pegs for fastening, no metal.  

We witnessed the maiden voyage of this large 'Phinisi',
clearly still under construction.  Note the people on deck for scale. 
She is a HUGE boat.

We were fortunate to see a partially completed boat that clearly was on its maiden voyage come back to the village just before sunset to anchor near us.  Many boat loads of locals and apparent officials were offloaded by skiff and whisked back to shore at dusk.  The boats build here are reportedly up to 30 meters in length.



The active volcano Sangeang forms an island
off the village of Wera.  She has been venting since the last
eruption, which was in May 2014 (those are NOT clouds!)

We considered staying around and visiting the shore to view the boat building the next day, but reports from other cruisers about theft from their decks in this anchorage and the very ‘cheeky’ nature of the village children that rowed out to ask for gifts left us feeling the best thing to do was to keep moving and so the next morning very early we set sail away from Sumbawa for Komodo, which really was our destination after all.