Kupang isn't much of a muchness as far as a city is concerned - it's old, shabby, and dirty, and the anchorage is uncomfortable when the wind blows. It's a daily on-shore breeze and it makes going ashore in the dinghy rather wet and messy, so one goes ashore early in the morning before the breeze blows up, and stays ashore until 5 pm or so when the wind dies. As in South America, there are hundreds of little shops all selling a little bit of everything - some food stuff, plastic ware, whatever. Various vendors sit on the street selling - shallots, corn, whatever. It's a most inefficient way to shop, but they've probably been doing it this way for hundreds of years, and aren't going to change now. 

The big market, where fresh produce is to be obtained was a real turn-off - the open sewer ran alongside of, and through, the market, so I just couldn't bring myself to buy anything. We learned after we left that they had a western-style supermarket in the "new" section of town, but we missed it. We arranged a tour of the ikat weaving factory [PHOTO] and the place where they make traditional musical instruments from the island of Roti. Everything is small-scale, shabby, but it was very interesting and informative and we enjoyed it. Another day Peter and I went to the museum - that was a trip and a half - we got lost on the "bemos" several times, finally got to the museum. With lots and lots of buildings I thought this was going to be a large museum. Well, I don't know what all the buildings were for, but just one had exhibits - a single very large room with a few cubbyhole type exhibits. A bit of a letdown. Several thousand years of culture condensed into ½ an hour's worth of viewing. 

We left at about 6 am the next day, went through the same rigmarole to get out, hitting some coral once (going in we were on a rising tide, so I didn't worry too much, but leaving was on a falling tide that caused me a great deal of concern), but we made it out and were on our way to Roti island. Another not so great anchorage. We had read in the newspaper the first day we arrived in Indonesia that Singapore was complaining about Indonesia's bush fires causing serious air pollution in Singapore from the smoke. I thought that they were exaggerating, but as we sailed West we realized that it was true. The air smells of smoke, and visibility is terrible. We left Roti to sail to Savu, which is a low island too far from Roti to make in just an overnight sail, but not far enough to really take 24 hours to get there. I was watching out for the island as the sun set (with the smoky haze, we hadn't seen it before, but I was hoping that the island would be outlined by the sun as it set). Unfortunately, as the sun got lower and lower towards the horizon it got redder and redder until about 45 minutes before it would sink below the horizon it just disappeared into the smoke in the air. It's very weird, because with no land around, no obvious plumes of smoke, it makes you wonder if there's something wrong with your eyes (or if a monster has swallowed the sun!) 

Arriving in Savu, we went ashore and there was virtually nothing - the town was shabby, no fruits or vegetables except for a few shabby tomatoes, we wound up not getting anything except an Ikat panel. We left the next morning to go to Sumba which is a bigger island where we figured there'd be more to see. Again, the smoke haze was so bad that we navigated to Sumba strictly by GPS, not seeing the island until the GPS said we were on the approach to Waingapu. This was weird - total reliance on our GPS is not a situation we enjoy being in. Without the GPS navigating would be virtually impossible, since the sky isn’t clear enough to navigate with a sextant, and we don’t have radar. All the smoke in the air makes for impressive (but sometimes disturbing) sunsets. 

On September 18, after an overnight sail from Sumba, we arrived before noon in Rinca Island. Across from Komodo Island, it also has Komodo dragons, but without the touristy troubles of Komodo. While Peter took a nap I went blew up our little rowing dinghy and went ashore to scout around. I didn't get far – I immediately saw Dragon tracks right there on the beach, and decided that I did not want to encounter one or more of them alone and unarmed (if you've seen the National Geographic show on them, you'd know that they can eat people, and their bite is so septic it's poisonous). So I went back to the boat. We had anchored as close to shore as possible - the beach slopes extremely gradually, so at low tide a long expanse of sand is visible, and then a sharp drop-off to about 15 feet - we were really close to the shallow part, but still a distance from "shore". But just sitting in the cockpit with our binoculars we saw in the two hours before sunset: two or three monkeys, two deer, and a Komodo Dragon walking along the beach. Also a little black animal that ran into the brush too quickly for us to identify, but probably a miniature wild pig (they have really bitty pigs here in Indonesia, about the size of a medium-sized dog). 

Our friends on NED KELLY showed up the next morning, and we decided to all go exploring while the tide was high. It looks as if we picked the best of the anchorages in this large bay. As the four of us were walking along the beach, a Komodo dragon walked along the beach towards us. Phil and I hustled over to try to get a good picture of him, but he slithered off into the brush - he didn't like us too much, I guess. 

We left Rinca the next day, slooshing up the pass with a better than 2 knot current pushing us along. Found another great anchorage on the east coast of Sumbawa, good diving, having a great time. Good thing, because it was the last good anchorage for a while. We went into Bima on Sumbawa Island to get fuel because we had gone through more than 30 gallons since leaving Kupang. Bima was a nicer town than we expected. Things are pretty clean, and there was a decent selection of stuff, though still no fresh meat (no way were we going to buy any of those chickens or beef that was sitting out in the open market) and little in the way of vegetables. 

One of the really charming features of the eastern islands of Indonesia is their use of local ponies for transportation. In Sumba, Sumbawa, and in Lombok they hook the ponies up to small carts and they are the local taxi service and short-haul trucking service. Some of the poor ponies [PHOTO] get really loaded up. We had walked up to the Bima market with Phil and Helen on NED KELLY, but we wanted to take one of the pony taxis back. More of the typical Indonesian negotiations started, but before we had to haggle too hard a competitor came clopping over to us, prompting our chosen driver to fold really quickly on the price (which indicated to us that we were still not as low as local riders, but it was okay for us - about 33¢ per person). All four of us climbed into the cart, and I felt that the poor pony was being unduly burdened with the four of us (though Phil and Peter said not to worry, look at the pony that had to carry a load of steel reinforcing bars; now that was heavy). But we four large Westerners caused the cart to tilt and lifted the pony completely off its feet. We and the driver had to shift our weight until the pony’s feet again touched the ground and could take off down the road back to the harbor. The ponies’ harnesses are brightly decorated and have small bells attached, so that they jingle as they gallop down the street. 

We arranged with a local fellow to bring diesel out to the boat, which he did in a 50-gallon barrel. Pumping it into our tank was another one of those experiences that is better in hindsight than it was while it was happening. They used a manual pump while they held their hard wooden boat alongside the ‘Melon. It took about a half an hour to pump in the fuel, though it seemed as if it took longer, and I worried the entire time about possible damage to our topsides by their boat. I was wrong, and we were fine, though we later realized that the fellow had shortchanged us (it wasn’t the first time in Indonesia, and it would not be the last, either).
 

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