After leaving Ambon, we sailed/motored for a few days before arriving in Wakatobi Marine National Park. Entering the anchorage was a bit of a narrow passage, and we fought 2+ knots in the channel to anchor.
Lately, we’ve been working hard to keep on our school schedule in hopes that we won’t have to take any schoolwork back to the US with us when we visit this summer. Thankfully, the sailing has been calm enough to allow the kids to continue on their regular school agendas, only requiring me to alter a few assignments (i.e. - instead of reading about the US flag’s history and etiquette, I downloaded Youtube videos to watch, and we listen to audiobooks rather than read, and orally report on our learning instead of having to write too much). I know the kids could probably write and read and such while we’re sailing, but this just cuts out the battles and whining, making it less about me enforcing and more about me participating. Plus, we’ve said there can be no choice (movie or ipad time) until schoolwork is done for the day.
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| Exploring a floating Fish Attracting Device (FAD) during calm seas |
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| Floating FAD |
Only once we ticked all our subject boxes did we head into shore to check out the Hoga Island Dive Resort. When we beached the dinghy, we were surprised to find the island teeming with college students! Turns out Essex University marine biology department was visiting for their annual marine biology camp! There must have been over 200 young adults there - some cleaning their dive gear, others gathered around computers working on research projects, still more seated at wooden tables participating in seminars about fish and coral identification, and yet a small number who’d obviously had their fill of learning were sprawled out in the shade - head on their backpack and mouth gaping open in full snooze mode.
We met the owners, and said we might be back in a few days when things settled down to talk about doing a guided dive through their resort. Turns out, though, that we decided to take advantage of the favorable weather pattern we were in and continue chewing off miles heading to Komodo. That night we enjoyed our Friday Family Night taco salad and Despicable Me 3, then rested up for our early morning departure. Mark had to really crunch the numbers for this passage to ensure we hit the currents right on our way back out the channel. Then we stopped at a small atoll where fishing huts stood on stilts, canoes tied up and floating around them.
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| Field Trip drifting as we explore the FAD (notice the mainsail...time for a new main!) |
Mark and I hopped in the dinghy to do a quick dive in the pass. The reef walls were steep and bursting with life. A huge dog-toothed tuna came up close to check us out, as we changed direction with the indecisive currents. I noticed the massive table corals that protruded from the wall were doing something I’d never seen before. Some of them had fallen sideways under their own weight, and along the perpendicular edge, parallel with the sunlit surface, new table corals were growing like plants that always reorient themselves to the sun. A crocodile fish, at least a meter in length, rested in a ledge of sand, and a lionfish huddled inside a barrel coral. Along the dive, we saw at least 3 varieties of nudibranchs, too. I peeked closely at a few of the fans, but my seahorse-spotting skills weren’t quite up to the task. After 83 minutes, we ascended and headed back to the boat to get dinner going.
We thought we had tucked in out of the current, but later that night, we noticed a fast-moving ripple trailing behind each of our transom steps. We all tried to guess how strong it was, then Mark flipped on the instruments - 2.4 knots! It seemed much stronger than that! He could barely get the dinghy hooked onto the davits to raise it for the night with the current pushing perpendicular to where he needed to be! Our anchor was securely set, though, and we slept well that night in preparation for our 4-day passage to Komodo. Westward Ho!
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| Westward Ho! |
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