Anambas Islands

Our  track around the Anambas 

We checked into Indonesia, totally trouble free, and done incredibly efficiently by the staff at Nongsa Point Marina. Interestingly here the government apparently want photos of my engines. These were duly taken, by one of the marina employees and I assume sent to somewhere, other than 'trade an engine'.

Take an old sheet and some blue packaging tape

and a stapler and a bit of twine

My 'handcrafted' international code flag N (required to be flown in conjunction with Q ) until Quarantine clearance has been granted into Indonesia, cut the mustard.Happily it wasn't closely inspected, or some minor defects may have been apparent, but flying above Q from the shrouds it looked the part.

and look what you can make!

Almost looks like the real thing.

Set off to in a taxi to find the nearest ATM machine and also to search vainly for tonic water. Eventually with a 15 minute detour to a much larger shopping precinct than the original destination we found some local tonic- interesting taste and definitely will not be putting Schweppes out of business soon, but needs must when desperate!
Fixed up the phones with Indonesian SIM cards ,another mystery to occupy my time working out how to load them up, which will be made that little bit harder by having nothing in English. Both Malaysia and Thailand gave you the opportunity to switch to English, but cant figure Telkomcel out yet. Raided three ATM's in succession and left as instant millionaires having extracted 3.5 million – so should at least be able to but an ice cream somewhere!

The next day we left heading for the Anambas Islands 140nm away to the NE. located in the South China Sea and lying more off Malaysian territory than Indonesian, it is actually called the Regency of Anambas and Natuna.

These are islands which by reputation yachties have left alone. Piracy (petty theft rather than the kidnapping variety,as far as yachts have been concerned,and even then tug and tows and small tankers are much more lucrative).However over the last 3 years, a rally which sails from Malaysia to Borneo has stopped in at the islands and there has been no trouble and perhaps even an awakening that being nice to yachties is preferable to scaring them off.

Out into the Singapore Straits for I guess the last time,we made our way NE , this time actually with the traffic instead of contra flow. A couple of hours into it ,we were overtaken by a storm , which produced torrential rain for a couple of hours.

yep its wet

Chart on the left , radar picture on the right . Red is heavy rain ,yellow is what we were in and see the view above and below -not much without the radar.

and quite dark for 2pm!

Horsburgh Light Its there, both of them coming through the gloom

For anyone who has been through the Straits we passed just on half a mile to the west of Horsburgh Light and could just make it out as the rain started to ease.

Not too much traffic as we clear the Straits for the last time

Following the rain a great breeze for sailing arrived and stayed for the night, so we actually made good distance through the night once out of the grasp of the currents in the Strait.







Twenty four hours later and the first of the islands was within sight. The wind died and we ended up motor sailing past Pulau Djemadja to our first anchorage in the Anambas, Ayam Island.

Pulau Ayam anchorage

Beautiful and deserted until the following morning when a local chap and his family returned to their residence,set back from the foreshore, under some trees. He came to visit with his small son, in their canoe and appeared to be after a face-mask ,if we had one to spare. With no English from him, and no Indonesian from us, that is what we think he was asking for. Not having one to spare , he left. This was my first chance to check out under the boat since leaving the Tiomans back in June.
All appeared fine, very little growth- the mussels in Senibong hadn’t taken hold and the anti foul still doing its job in fine style.

Shifted over to Pulau Telega North , great sail en route.

on the way to Pulau Telega N

Drift snorkelled over the reef astern of the boat at the anchorage. Not ,any small fish but a few definitely plate size contenders. Good coral and good diversity, plates, staghorns,bombies, quite a bit like home.

Next day we shifted the 4 hours across to the main city of the Anambas Regency – Terempa.