Sunday 22 February – heading to the remote south side of Rinka Island

We had a big storm last nigh, loads of thunder and lightening, a bit of wind but nothing too challenging. There is a big weather system lurking over the area. We knew we had to get going reasonably early in the morning as we are going to take a narrow passage between Rinka and Flores Island to get to our destination. The current has been clocked at 10 knots going through there so we need to get it right with slack tide . It was a blustery morning and choppy in the anchorage, as soon as we got out the waves really picked up, we did some big rolls, things flying off various surfaces, which we have not had in a very long time. There was a steady stream of Phinisis and long boats heading out. How the long boats cope in those waters is amazing, I guess it is just years of experience. They seem to have right of way or if not they take no notice of any other boats, we had to go around quite a few.

It took us about an hour to get to the entrance of the passage, thankfully the water was a lot calmer here as it is protected by the islands. We passed Max’s resort called Scuba Junkie, he is Noah’s friend who we met on their phinisi the other day. It was very reassuring to see a phinisi on AIS going through the passage about 2 miles ahead of us. We knew it must be ok. The water swirled around ferociously, pushing us about but nothing too scary. We clocked 13.5 knots boat speed, the engines were pushing us at just over 6 knots, so we reckon the current was about 6knots. It was interesting to see the villages on the other side, plus a boatyard on the beach where they were building and repairing phinisis. It took us just over an hour to get through the passage. We were amazed to see two catamarans under sail heading towards us on the other side, they were obviously going to do the passage the other way. It turned out to be the two cats with single men on them that we had in our bay the first night with Lovat and family. They had just come from where we are heading. We were glad to find the sea not too rough the south side of Rinka after about an hour we went into what must be a caldera of an extinct volcano. It is a huge horseshoe, we had the place to ourselves and chose a sheltered area next to a little island that was marked as a good snorkel spot. We anchored easily and spent the late afternoon admiring the wilderness around us. In the evening two deer appeared and gallivanted around the beach, they must be enjoying the cool evening. The bird noise was fantastic and the scenery is amazing. There is a wall of steep mountains around us with some impressive cliffs. There was one little long boat that spluttered through but besides that we were here alone, it was very atmospheric and very calm even with threatening clouds all around us.