Monday 26 January – fantastic snorkel with Mr Albar

Mr Albar was with us at 8:30am which was a bit of a shock as he was half an hour early. He declined breakfast with us! We went off in his boat for a snorkel, we shot across to the island next door and I was getting very despondent as there was so much rubbish in the water, his engine cut out every 5 minutes to clear plastic off his propeller. I think he read our faces as he landed up taking us way around the island where no long boats or fishermen were. I told Rowan I only wanted to go in if it was exceptional, my cough and ears are not 100%, so I only wanted to get in if it was really worth it. Within seconds Rowan told me to get in and it really was exceptional. No rubbish, good visibility, amazing coral varieties on a very dramatic drop off, with loads of fish. Huge schools that twinkled as they caught the sun. We saw loads of the little blue dotted rays, a crocodile fish and more sea snakes. Mr Albar snorkeler with us dragging the boat along, we must have covered a good few kms. Mr Albar was so sad when I initially said I wouldn’t snorkel because of the rubbish, but feel it is good for them to know their tourism will dry up if the rubbish continues.

We returned to PolePole for a quick shower then he took us to the Bajo village on stilts over the water, where he lives. They are the Bajo tribe and always live over water and not on land, they have quite a few towns scattered around Sulawesi. Extraordinary that they all choose to live precariously on top of each other. We had arranged a tour with a lady called Ayu who was recommended to us, she met us at some rickety steps we had to get up to from Mr Albar’s boat to join her. She spoke excellent English and told us there were 10 thousand residents. They live in 5 neighbourhoods each with their own Mosque. Some walkways have been built up with coral and rubble which the scooters buzz up and down on, other walkways are very precarious planks of wood balancing on thin poles between the houses. Amazingly they seem to have their own rules here and kids can ride scooters, outside they have to be over 18 years old. Rowan led the way down one particularly rickety route and got such a wobble going on the thin poles the locals in the houses were shrieking with laughter and some worry, I think. He finally had to sit down and bum waddle his way back. Ayu says they love their community and nobody from the Bajo people would ever live on land. She took us to their market, which mainly had fish of every sort, one lady had loads of little puffer fish which was rather sad, plus we thought they were poisonous. The general produce market was a rambling street under cover with water all around. Some areas were full of trash and others were better kept. We went to a hall where we met her mum and sisters who were with a lot of ladies preparing party food. We were given some green crepes filled with sweet coconut, looked synthetic but tasted delicious. In two days time there is a big circumcision party for the 9 year old boys! She said the Bajo people love their music, and love to sing and dance, it would be a big celebration with the kids in traditional dress.. She invited us to join them, but sadly we have planned to move on tomorrow, time is running out as we need to be in the southern island Flores by mid Feb, two weeks time, and it is a good 4 days sailing away, we still have loads to see here in Wakatobi plus we need to go to the mainland to get more fuel. We had a wonderful couple of hours wandering around with Ayu, saw some boat builders, working on their wooden boats, all very interesting. Our guest loo is not working and Rowan has managed to get the motor off and found that it is seized, Mr Albar had taken it to some mechanic to see if it could be fixed. We went to the mechanic who turned out to be a stereo boombox fixer…….it had defeated him! We had loads of kids following us around, they kept saying this word, which finally when we asked Ayu what they were saying it was ‘tourists’! Very funny, everyone was so friendly and engaging, I don’t think they get many tourists passing through. After a very sweaty time Mr Albar took us back in his boat to PolePole.

We could not rest as we needed to go to the market to stock up on fresh produce. The market only opens at 4pm and by 5pm when we arrived it was in full swing. We got loads of nice fruit including rambutans, and the usual veggies, plus the essential fresh eggs. Rowan is planning to do some Indonesian cooking, so we bought pawpaw flowers, chillies, fantastic lemon grass and all sorts of interesting goodies. We dashed back and put everything away before heading out for supper. We went down the road between us and the big modern construction which turned out to be the Maritime centre. So much infrastructure has been developed, the whole water front is built with the facilities for stall holders to serve food, including running water, lights and plenty of space to sit and eat. Quite something, but out of the 30/40 slots for stallholders about 6 were used, maybe it is different in peak season. Our restaurant was a very pleasant setting under some treed on a water way. It really is a coffee shop that serves food, sadly it was trying to be a bit too Western, the food was fine but nothing special. It felt like a long day we were happy to flop into bed.