Miss and Hit

When we left the mooring at Komodo's Gili Lawa Laut, we intended to sail a short 16 miles to Banta, mentioned in one of the rare cruisers' notes as having a good anchorage and great snorkeling. We've relied on these fragmentary notes to find places to anchor in Indonesia; the shorelines are incredibly steep, and the anchoring systems used by boats rely more on leverage than weight. The steeper the slope, the more likely the dug-in anchor will be yanked out as the tidal current and/or wind swings one way and then another. Picture a steep bowl, and a hook into its side. Pull up to the lip of the bowl (i.e., toward shore), and the hook digs deeper - all good. Pull down to the bottom of the bowl, and the hook slides out. Not good. Thus, we look for places where the underwater profile is at least reasonably sloped - and where the flattened areas do not lie too close to threatening reefs.  With the benefit of hindsight, volcanos thrusting out of the ocean are not great places to look for anchorages.

Despite the glowing remarks in the random cruiser's anchoring notes from 1990 or so (discovered on a random internet site), the bay in Banta seemed to defy gravity - a mere 100 yards from shore, the bottom was impossibly deep - at least several hundred feet. Any closer, the bottom shoaled quickly to a dozen feet or so at high tide. All or nothing. No middle ground ... so we abandoned Plan A, and continued west, sailing overnight along the coast of Sumbawa, the island west of Flores and Komodo, toward other anchorages. At dusk, we passed between the main island and an active volcano jutting some 6000 feet above the water, and, iceberg-like, rising 12,000 feet from the adjoining ocean floor.  Later, we dinghied over and visited the sulfurous lake in the volcano's caldera.

The winds were spotty but the current favorable, so we motored along on one engine through the night, arriving at the tiny central Sumbawa village of Kananga at noon or so the next day. Here, another set of cruisers' notes were spot-on: we found a shelf of dense black volcanic sand lying in just 25 feet of water, just offshore. To the north, across a narrow channel, lies a dormant volcano, its caldera filled with a fresh water lake. As a first order of business when arriving at an Indonesian village, I took our dinghy ashore to introduce ourselves to the village chief.

In this case, we had arrived at the sub-village of Sarae, or sand, the administrative center for Kananga. It was Sunday, a day of rest but of no religious import for this 100% Muslim community. The port office - painted cinderblock - was obvious by its flagpole atop of which flew the red-and white striped Indonesian flag. I was greeted enthusiastically by a T-shirted man and a woman wearing a modest head covering, and was asked to sit down on a bench outside an adjacent building.

A few minutes later, two young women walked up - one with brown hair, round glasses, and a quick smile; the other wearing a traditional Muslim headscarf. In near-perfect American idiomatic English, they introduced themselves, and, quite at ease with themselves, asked how they could help me ... unsure of the scope of their command of English, I patiently and simply explained I was introducing myself to the village, and asking permission to anchor off their beach.

Well, to cut to the quick, there was no need for simple English; the conversational pair of Berly and Shally took me under their wings, introduced me all around, and walked me to the store where I picked up some eggs, coffee, tiny tomatoes, beans, and bean sprouts - all locally grown. As we walked, I learned a bit of their story. They were here as part of Indonesia's version of the Teach for America program (their description). The program - Indonesia Mengajar (Teach Indonesia) - has over 4000 applicants across Indonesia, but only 72 are chosen - with 6-10 sent to a village in each of 9 regions. Given the breadth of Indonesia's islands, running into 2 of them was as lucky as finding a safe place to anchor. Once my land-based chores were done, I invited them and two of their host family friends back to our boat for some tea.

At the boat, I am pleased to note that they loved their Crystal Light drinks, as well as the stack of New Yorkers (for the teachers), and some blank school writing tablets, and pencils we gave them for their students. After a time on the boat, where they asked whether we had Facebook pages, and used their cell phone camera to take pictures of themselves at the wheel of our boat, we were, in turn, invited to join them for lunch at their home. There, we sat in a modest house on stilts, on a 6x9 carpet, and enjoyed a wonderful lunch of rice, stewed spicy vegetables, grilled flying fish, and coffee. Shally had studied to be an architect, and hopes to get into urban planning after completing a master's degree; Beryl studied communication science, and while expressing an interest in a master's program, confessed to having fallen in love with the students, and that she was, perhaps, considering a career in teaching.

We have met many Indonesians in our sailing time here, but to a one, all were either living hand-to-mouth, caring for their families and communities, were local teachers in local schools, or were in the trades. Beryl and Shally were, if you will, the first cosmopolitan Indonesians we met who were overtly aware of the breadth of Indonesia's cultures, lands, and challenges. In their words, their goal is to give students and their families a sense of possibility, centered around education. As an ancillary goal, they saw their role as helping to stitch together the several Indonesia's we've seen: urban and rural; Muslim, Christian, and Hindu; outlying island group to outlying island group.

We wish them well, and hope to see them on Facebook (!) ... we're glad we missed out on the Banta Island anchorage, and we're glad we hit the jackpot here, in Kananga, when we chanced to meet two of Indonesia's brightest hopes for the future ... and, in their students, some future hopes!