On the
journey across the north coast of Sulawesi we stopped in a large bay
off the village of Gentuma. Charting along this coast isn't the most
accurate. Why spend money surveying an area which is little used by
commercial shipping and rarely by pleasure boat? After all the local
fishermen know exactly where the reefs are.
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| the off watch crew sleep |
Three
miles off the coast the sea floor is three miles below you. It then
comes up sharply to 200m and finally as you approach the land our
Navionics charts indicate reef stretching from shore to shore. With
a good internet signal we're able to access the satellite earth
images and see only dark blue, ie deep water, between us and the
beach. Progressing cautiously by following a fishing boat returning
to port we don't encounter any shallow water. Who reported the reefs
to the original cartographers?
We
anchor in 20m of water off a small island about a mile out from the
village as we want to get in the water to check the hull and clean
the waterline. Yesterday afternoon we sailed over a log. It scuttle
along the hull and emerged from the sugar scoop. We were travelling
at 3nmph which included 1.5knts of current making impact speed a
lowly one and a half knots. A check of the hull showed no damage.
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| boys from Getuma |
While
we sitting on anchor enjoying our afternoon of not moving we were
visited by three boys in a canoe. They hopped onto the steps at the
back of the boat where we met them for a chat. An interesting chat
with my limited ability to speak Bahasa Indonesian and their limited
English but between us we swapped names, told them where we'd come
from and we were on our way to Manado to go diving. Lovely lads whom
we gave biscuits and a bottle of David's home made ginger beer which
we explained had no alcohol. It is soda like Coca Cola. We also
gave them coloured crayons for school work. Only small things but
they were thrilled.
Next
morning their friends paddled out to see us. They too had biscuits
and crayons to take home.
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