Tuesday 13 August What a welcome!

our ambassadors Sri and Ayu

ready for welcome ceremony

barge with dancers and food

Wakatobi has laid out the red carpet for us yachties. We've never had such a warm welcome, or one so well organised. All boats who'd arrived yesterday and early this morning, about eight of us, were invited ashore to the rally office to meet our personal ambassadors. These are English students from the local school who will be our guides and interpreters during our visit. Our two lovely girls, Sri and Ayu, are 15 and a delight.

Once we'd given the officials copies of our paperwork we were whisked off to the welcome ceremony in Bajo village. This involved a lot of sitting around in the sun waiting for the Regent, or mayor of the island to arrive but we had lots of people who wanted to talk to us, a demonstration of making a local version of ceviche, cake and drink to sustain us and then the welcome barge arrived at the dock loaded with dancing girls and food offerings for the gods of the sea. A well known young actress from Jakarta had also been flown in to to add to the glamour of the day. There were TV cameras and personal cameras everywhere. I did a short interview on how delighted I was to be in Bajo and taking part in the traditional ceremony.

We are treated like super special visitors with a fleet of cars to take us from place to place, people waving are calling out hello. It is quite something.