Tuesday 30 July Saumlaki

ordering a boat stamp

steps from beach to boat

4C stone boat - no sails or oars!

bow with altar

Saumlaki is on Tanimbar island and the administrative capital of the West Moluka group of islands. The population is around 20,000 and the most of the people are Catholic although there are also Muslims who live here. Being only a short distance from Papua New Guinea there is a racial mix of Indonesian and Papuans. There's also a mix of religions, mostly Catholic but some Muslims as well.

Together with Lop To, Pipistrelle and Saol Eile, a group of ten, with the help of our agent Nelis we hired a minibus for a day trip to visit a 4^th century carved stone boat on the eastern side of the island. The jolly charabanc trip departed Hotel Harakan Indah and an easy hour later we arrived at the Senglatti village. Bureaucracy exists in the smallest village, or perhaps I should say 'hello money'; the headman asked for a donation of $10 for visiting and sold us a bottle of local spirit for $5 to take to the lord of the land as a present. The Lord of the Land is the guardian / caretaker of the stone boat for all their ancestors. He also asked for $10 to pray for us and ask the ancestors to accept us. He recited a prayer which had the same rhythm as the Lord's prayer. It certainly had strong Catholic overtones – a strange mixture of western religion and ancient local beliefs.

The stone boat is 20m long, 8m wide and 1.5m high with a prow at each end and an alter at the end pointing away from the sea. The village is on a cliff above the sea and the ancestors built a flight of stone steps from the beach up to the centre and a few steps on is the stone boat.

Next stop on the tour was a wood carving and weaving village. Here there were no 'hello monies' asked for but all the ladies turned out with their handicrafts to tempt us. The weaving and carving is of a good standard. It must have been appealing because I bought a couple of small carvings of tall thin ladies carrying water pots on their heads. I thought they'd make nice companions for Albert who came from Vanuatu.

We were back in town mid afternoon for a late lunch and to collect our new boat name stamp. We'd been watching the young man carving, all free hand and perfectly intricate so we can now stamp SV Jackster at will on any document the officials ask us to. Indonesians love official stamps, sign your name, stamp it and it's official.