[password] kudzuu1114
[position] 02 33.15s 107 41.36e
[weather] no sailing... no wind
[speed] at anchor
[heading]
[status] After passing up an opportunity to stop overnight at the mouth of the Kumai River, Mersoleil turned right and sailed straight for Belitung, Teleg Kelayang, where amazing granite boulders decorate the anchorage and the beaches. Hard to picture a glacier grinding through here, but... I guess times have changed.

Our intent was to extend our Indonesian visas once more, a process that takes a few days, but after a three or four day visit we made the quick decision to skip the visa extension and make straight for Singapore, making our stop there two weeks instead of one.

Highlights of Belitung were the people. People on every Indonesian island clearly demonstrate their various cultures, tribes and ethnic personalities, but they all seem to have in common that gentle, loving, welcoming manner that we will always remember from Indonesia. Harun, whose name and phone number I found in a cruising guide, has moved to the city, opened a hardware store and passed off his yacht support activities to Ervan. Nonetheless, Harun drove out to the cape to meet me and spent half a day escorting Cheri Slotta and me to town for the usual needs: ATM, TELKOMSEL top up, lunch, and a slab of Bintang.

A mechanical engineer who obtained his education in Germany, Harun is a fascinating conversationalist, and we decided it would be fun to get together for dinner with his entire family before we sailed away. Harun met us at a beachfront Indonesian restaurant at seven one evening. He had made the reservation and ordered the meal beforehand and we spent a pleasant evening chatting with him, his wife Jenni and their three beautiful daughters.

Aside from the lively and interesting conversation, I came away with two impressions from our evening together. First, and our recent visit to Tanjung Puting National Park confirmed this, Harun told us, no, he and his family have not traveled much to other Indonesian islands. Most Indonesians never see their native orangutans! We encouraged them to go there and give the girls the memorable experience of watching oragutans swinging above them from branch to branch.

I was also deeply impressed by the fact that two of Harun's three girls wear eyeglasses. This doesn't sound like a big thing to a westerner, I know, but optical care is completely unavailable throughout much of the third world and prohibitively expensive where it's available at all. At first I thought that the peoples of the South Pacific Islands were blessed with excellent eyesight, weren't they lucky. Gradually I came to realize that, no, many of them can't see. They just go without eye care, the same as they go without dental care and other personal luxuries that I have taken for granted all my life. It's the rare and privileged parent, in Indonesia or elsewhere in the southern hemisphere archipelagos, who is able and makes the effort to protect his children's eyesight. Harun and Jenni want their girls to excel in a challenging and changing world - and these girls are wearing glasses.

We enjoyed meeting Abdul, too, a Brit formerly known as Rodney who has settled in Belitung, adopted the Muslim faith, and enjoys the company of yachties who appear at Ervan's restaurant near the Tg. Kelayang jetty. Abdul generously offered us a lift into town anytime we needed one and we arranged a reprovisioning run just before our departure. That little trip was far more interesting than anticipated for Stedem and me when we arrived at shore as planned and learned that Abdul's engine had blown up the night before. Thus he accompanied us on the ride to town in Ervan's car, waited with us at Terry's house (another Brit living in Indonesia for the past twenty years, a retired Boeing engineer) while we watched Russian satellite news TV, "they won't tell you these things in America!", and eventually were delivered to the traditional market.

While at the market, an emergency call from Terry's wife put a hurried end to our fruit and veg browsing and after a few minutes of speed-provisioning we rushed back to Terry's house where a 60-minute search failed to produce the required documents regarding their 21-year-old heart-throb son who continues to star in an Indonesian TV show thanks to the privileges of some work release program. Nor could the lawyer produce them as he was rushing himself to the hospital for painkillers, his back, I believe, and Terry drove us back to Kelayang at a speed that made the trip remarkably exciting.

Really, it's absolutely amazing how quickly one can meld into the daily life of the people one meets! Will I remember these things for the rest of my life? Yeah, probably. How can you forget watching the news from Russia telling you what your own government is (possibly) doing behind your back!? Posted by Bev.
[END]