Pulau Medang to Komodo- Loh Serau

Another cracking sunrise- but by far the coolest to date

Sailing for 24 hours, a great sail,almost cracking 10 knots at one stage, had us arriving at 0700  in the very beautiful bay of  Loh Serau  which was completely devoid of  any other boats.The last few hours from about 0400 onwards, were the coldest I have felt since starting this adventure.
Piece by piece I found myself adding to my attire. No sarong, or shorts and shirt this morning.Sunrise found me in long jeans, a jumper and wet weather jacket, just to stop the chill factor. At eight and half degrees south of the equator I wasn't expecting to be quite so cool.

During the night we had passed a real live smoking/active volcano, Pulau Sangeang. Using my night vision scope, it was easy to detect the lava at the summit.

Who put that anchor down aft? I'm sure it was at the other end last night!

The water was stunningly clear- again. I keep saying it,but when you are in it, or on it, and it is so clear, its just worth spruking about it.

https://youtu.be/O4c4u-1JfiA

The bay may have been devoid of boats but there were fish a plenty, (its a National Park) and something was stirring up the wee ones who were putting on a stunning display for us as they tried to evade what ever lurked beneath. They were up and out of the water, making it shimmer as the "flew" trying to escape.None of the video really captured the almost sine wave formation they were moving in.The noise they made was what alerted us each time to their activity, as they moved out of and above and then back into the water in pack formation.A definite case of safety in numbers I suspect.

The land surrounding the bay  itself hardly resembles a verdant tropical paradise.It seems relatively tree less- whether this is natural or not I don't know. It is certainly mountaneous, but very very dry.
 We walked along the beach , inspecting the "finds" - just the usual, plastic ,plastic ,plastic and oh yes, more plastic,with the odd shoe/sandal thrown in for variation. Sad, but true.

We slept,explored the beach- keeping a very weather eye out for the famed lizards and snorkelled, and later in the evening a couple of Phinisi - Indonesian traditional boats, arrived to also anchor in our bay.
These Phinisi , were engaged in the dive tourism industry.

One of them was stunning- obviously the way to do a dive trip, if you can afford it. Si Datu Bua- look it up if you want. It'
s available for charter from $84000 per week- and  that isn't Indonesian Rupia!

Sunset at Loh Serau

A rather piratical looking Phinisi if the foreground, with a real smoking volcano behind
Pulau Sangeang