Thursday 29 January – another Bajo village over water

The wind was howling from first daylight. Rowan went for a snorkel after breakfast but it didn’t last long, it was too choppy and the wind was blowing the dinghy onto the reef, so not easy. I had opted out as it was too bouncy for me so I got a huge pile of laundry done, which dried in the wind in no time. Rowan arranged with Pudong the first guy to greet us in a long boat, to take us to his Bajo village over the water. He calls the Bajo people sea gypsies, they come from the Philippines and Malaysia over thousands of years. As they rely on diving to feed themselves they have become incredible free divers, they have evolved over centuries and have spleens twice the size as normal which gives extra oxygen to the blood so they can dive deeper and stay down longer. They find children who have not started diving have much bigger spleens, so it appears to be truly evolutionary. Incredibly their daily subsistence dives are around 20-30ms deep and they can dive down to 70m deep. They can hold their breath for ages too, over 10 minutes, but this is due to training.

Pudong picked us up in his boat which is beautifully painted and sounds like a tractor. It has to be cranked up to start, reminds me of my parents old car! Once we got going it was a smooth ride into the waves and with the high bow we didn’t get wet. This village only has two thousand residents so much smaller than the other one we visited. The water is so surprisingly clean and no smell. He had a lovely little pandanus house on wooden stilts, the flooring is made of sliced bamboo, so all the air comes through which makes it very cool. His wife made us lunch across the walkway. It was nowhere as good as yesterday’s meal, in fact I think the one bowl was a pot noodle! Three tiny fish, some rice, and a fried egg. His son had made a little wooden catamaran he wanted to sell to us, as he is saving for a laptop. Amazingly they do have electricity out in the houses and we spotted a few TVs. Everyone seems to have a phone even the youngsters, which seems tragic. Afterwards Pudong took us around the village, everyone was very friendly we had a troop of young boys following us, desperate for our attention. We went past the primary school, the slightly older kids in their classrooms with their teachers, all just a step across from the wooden walkway. It all looked very well run, a smart looking clinic, a police station, and of course a big Mosque in the middle. It was incredibly hot walking around, Pudong was very concerned about our white skin burning. It didn’t take that long to walk around the village, he kept telling us to walk on the centre planks, they obviously have a few rotten planks on the sides. I was amazed as we saw loads of cats and they all have stumpy tails, he says they are born like that and they have no cats with long tails. No dogs in the village, just a few chickens under the houses that have coral/rubble foundations. His father appeared at the end a very wizened old man who makes their traditional wooden eye masks for diving. Apparently his dad is a very good free diver and still goes diving for fish. He sold us a pair of his handmade goggles, glass inserted into two wooden eye pieces. You must have to tie the rubber cord so tight to stop them leaking, I would be curious to see them in action. Pudong has a little house next to his which is a Homestay room, his guests are typically foreigners coming to learn how to free dive. We are still mystified about the ablutions, no evidence of it in the water or smell, Ayu in the last village just said the tide cleans it out. When you see the kids swimming around in the water, you realise they must have amazing immune systems. Pudong took us back mid afternoon and brought along his snorkelling mask which he wanted us to glue back together. We gave him some glue and also found an old mask for him, he was over the moon! It had been a good day for him, lunch cost more than yesterday, at £5 a head!

We got a few things sorted today as we are leaving tomorrow. We are heading to the main Sulawesi island just over 60 miles away where we hope to pick up fuel. It will be a motor into the wind and not that comfortable with a choppy swell. We plan to stop overnight at an atoll halfway along, so that we don’t have to do any night navigation. The place we are heading to has hundreds of FADS in the bay, so we want to get there in good daylight. I’m a little nervous about us in this atoll with strong winds. However we have been reassured by the yacht a few days ahead of us, on this same route that they stayed in the atoll and said it was fine. Fingers crossed, it is a narrow entrance!