Tuesday 13 January – heading north

We got going as soon as we woke up, we had a fair distance to cover, we knew we would be motoring into the wind. It was another hot slow day. We had two options to head north either side of the islands, we chose to keep as close to the main Helmahera Island as possible. We had been going an hour or so and the wind was steadily increasing, we must have had a lot of current against us too, as the sea got really bouncy with short choppy waves, it really wasn’t pleasant. By midday it was so uncomfortable and with 20knts of wind on the nose we decided to find an anchorage. Rowan found a deep bay on the main island which we headed straight across to. What bliss when we finally got into the bay and the water was calm.

It was boiling hot without the wind so we spent the afternoon recovering. We were outside a little town so when it cooled down around 5pm we headed into the town for a walk. We were an absolute novelty, I do not think they have had many yachts here. Everyone wanted photos with us. We walked as far as we could down the one main street, everyone was so friendly and cheerful. We met a whole group of girls shelling nutmegs. It must be growing wild somewhere, and they are getting paid something for the shelled nutmeg. The town looked quite affluent, it is so hard to communicate as they don’t speak a word of English. On Google maps it looks like the land behind the town is all logged. There was loud banging going on all afternoon, it sounded like the fire crackers at Frewin only a lot louder. We never saw anyone letting them off, so it remained a mystery. The kids all followed us like Pied Piper, they were very sweet and engaging. We had asked about buying bananas as we had not found any at the supermarket in Sorong. Nobody seemed to have any, but when we headed back we spotted a guy carrying a bunch. We managed to demonstrate we would pay something for his bananas, when I produced a 50000 note he was very happy! The kids gave us a good send off from the jetty.

It was a relaxing evening out of the wind.