Messing Around in Raja Ampat

We made it to Raja Ampat, our 4th visit here since 2016.

After 3 weeks in the boonies, the first order of business was getting re-stocked with food and fuel. So we decided to pull into the marina.

Early March: A Few Days at Tampa Garam:  We opted to go into Wick's Tampa Garam "Marina" on Feb 28.  We had been in there on our trip back from Papua New Guinea in 2019, and so knew what to expect.  This marina had been built as part of a resort complex that was no longer operating.

The Narrow Entrance to Tampa Garam Marina, Sorong
There are a few permanently based boats in the marina basin, but not much in the way of a real marina.  An ex-pat Australian named Wick (Warwick Alliston) who has 5 or 6 businesses in Sorong (the primary city in Raja Ampat) leased the space to accommodate visiting yachts.

The entry is narrow and has a half-sunk ferry and a controlling depth of about 10 feet at high tide.  But Screensaver, with a 2.1m draft, got in with no issues at half tide. Contact Wick by Whatsapp, and he will arrange for someone to guide you in.  Ourselves, with a 1.1m draft, and having been in before, we went in on our own.

Wick's Contact Information

In addition to managing 2 marinas, Wick also does a lot preventive maintenance for the huge diving industry in Raja Ampat. Tanks, compressors, etc. Plus he knows every tradesman in Sorong, so can be a great source of who to go to if you have a boat problem.

All Settled, Mediterranean Style, in the Marina
We were surprised to see a big motor yacht in at the marina. It turned out to be a guy I had been chatting with on FB Messenger--exchanging information on anchorages, etc. in Raja Ampat. He was appreciative of the extensive information we post on our website, and so invited all the cruisers (all 3 boats) aboard his beautiful yacht for dinner. Very nice guy, great staff, great dinner. They were on their way from the Philippines to take the boat home to Australia. We enjoyed hanging out with them for a few days.

An Evening Aboard the Yacht

There are no piers in the marina, just a nasty concrete wall with some tie-points.  So you have to med-moor... drop your anchor in the middle of the basin and gently ease backwards and toss your lines to someone on shore.  With our twin engines (and a dinghy or two standing by) it was no big deal.

The tide is about 6 ft in range, and the wall you are tying to is pretty broken, so everyone stands off a good 6-10 feet, and uses the dinghy to go ashore.  We didn't like tying our rubber dinghy to the nasty wall, so usually left it at the head of the basin on a small dock (careful not to obstruct others' use of the dock).

We arrived on a holiday weekend and the pool associated with the resort (which, unlike the resort, is open) was jam packed. We went one time, but never went back.

The Nice Pool at Tampa Garam

This marina isn't very convenient to the main part of Sorong--the route minibuses don't come all the way out to the marina.  The only solution is to take an Ojek--a motorcycle--to where the route minibuses turn around.  Or get Wick to arrange a taxi.  Air conditioned taxi rate about US $10 per hour.

We organized a trip via taxi to drop me at the grocery store, and Dave take the diesel jugs to the gas station, and then pick me back up at the grocery store.

Jugging Diesel...Car to Dinghy to Foredeck!
Cats Supervising, of course

Cat food is scarce out here. Especially cat food the cats will actually eat. All during our cruise thru the Philippines last year I was trying them on different varieties of canned cat food, and they absolutely refused to eat it, no matter what the flavor. So, I kept doing what I had been doing--buying small "Tongkol" (very close relation to Little Tunny in the Atlantic) at the fish market, cooking them, and cleaning them. Here I am having fun again cleaning Tongkol. The cats, of course, are making sure Mom is doing it right.

Sherry Making Cat Food

Diving in Raja Ampat: Since we had to come back to Sorong to renew our visas in a couple of weeks, we didn't spend too much time in the marina. We soon blasted off to go diving with Biodiversity Eco Resort We did a bunch of diving with them in 2016, during their off season. Now, with barely any tourists in Indonesia, they weren't really fully open, but said they could accommodate a few diving days, and we were trying to negotiate a good deal for all of us to dive.

The Gorgeous Beach at Biodiversity

The whole dive negotiation got a little messy, though. Rather than diving as a group together, Yanina off Screensaver declared that she wanted her very own dive guide--to stay with her, at her side, the whole dive. She had had a couple of scares while diving recently, but desperately wanted to see what everyone was raving about under the surface in Raja Ampat, but she was also scared. Dave, on the other hand, wanted a guide that would range around and find critters for him to take pictures of. And Biodiversity only had one guide at that time. So we ended up splitting into 2 groups, diving separately, and couldn't negotiate much of a deal on price. So we didn't dive as much as we wanted to. But we did get a few dive days in.

Lounging on the beach during a Surface Interval
Legendary Cape Kris in the Background

Kabui Bay For A Few Days: After we finished diving, we left Screensaver at Biodiversity and went up into Kabui Bay. We had gunk-holed a spot in the dinghy in 2016 that Dave really wanted to take Soggy Paws into...a very shallow sand spot unsuitable for monohulls. 00°25.05'S / 130°36.86'E

Our Very Private Anchorage

A River Trip: Another adventure we had in Kabui Bay is a dinghy trip up a river on the north side of Kabui Bay. We anchored the big boat off the river at 00°19.31' S / 130°35.75' E in about 8 feet of water (shallows slowly, pick your depth). Took the dinghy as far as we could go up the river... about 2-3 miles.

Headed into the River

Marking the Very End on the GPS

Stay Tuned for Part 2 of our Raja Ampat Adventures!

On Our Way to Raja Ampat

I can't believe it has been a year without a single blog post. It was a busy year!  This post is an effort to try to catch up on last year's adventures (Jan-Dec 2022) in May 2023.  We are currently (May 2023) in Pangkor Marina, Malaysia, doing a lot of work to prep for next year's dash to the Mediterranean.

Late Feb, 2022, location Bitung, NE Sulawesi, Indonesia.

The last time we went from NE Sulawesi to Sorong, we went over the top of Halmahera, with a stop in Morotai and Wayag.  We were leading a small rally that time, and our stops were cast in concrete.

2016 Rally to Raja Ampat.

This time we went the other way around Halmahera / Maluku--south about.

Our Track from Bitung to Sorong

We blasted out of Bitung/Lembeh Strait on Feb 9, 2022, with a plan of making it a long day-hop and anchoring overnight in the middle of the Molucca Sea (between Sulawesi and Halmahera), at either the tiny island of Maju, or the even tinier island of Gureda. This was after a heated discussion between the Captain, who hates going overnight, and Navigator, who hates rushing all day--motoring usually--to make it to some half-assed anchorage at the crack of dark, or maybe after dark. We have this discussion regularly. In theory, if we got going at just before daylight, and had good winds, we could make it the 72 miles to the open roadstead anchorage at Maju. Nobody we knew had ever been there, but it looked anchorable on a satellite picture. Though the island was misplaced by 3/4 of a mile--our anchor waypoint dropped using the satellite view plotted well inland.

Well, we didn't actually get underway right at the crack of dawn, and we ran into some current going around the north tip of Lembeh Island, and the winds were not good enough to consistently make the 6+ knots we needed to make.

Coming around the N End of Lembeh Island
I finally convinced Dave that we weren't going to make it before dark, and we should plan to go overnight. We hadn't seen a fishing boat or a FAD for hours, and unlikely to encounter much out in the middle. This ended up saving us 3 days of long up early-motorsailing all day-and in late day-hopping. The next morning, we were approaching the islands off the SW coast of Halmahera. By sunset we had made our way to an decent-looking anchorage. This spot wasn't quite as good as it looked because the pretty beach had been taken over by fishermen and a fish farm. We ended up anchoring in 72 feet at 00°01.40' S / 127°13.43' E. We had a little 2G internet--enough to pick up email.

Though there were some interesting places to explore on Halmahera, we had already seen a bit of the island, and were hurrying to catch up with another boat--Screensaver, with Alan and Yanina aboard. Alan had been loitering around in hopes we would catch up, and we could cruise together for awhile. And THEY were on a schedule due to visa renewal issues. So we didn't really cruise this area, but proceeded south and east through the islands just west of Bacan Island west of the southern peninsula of Halmahera. We spent one night in an anchorage called Firefly Bay (00°26.94' S / 127° 16.44' E). Cruisers a few years before had seen a lot of fireflies there, but we didn't see any. No cell signal here.

A Fast Ferry from Labuha
In 2 more days, we finally caught up with Screensaver. We ended up cruising together with them for 3 weeks all the way to Sorong. The weather was good and we were in a pretty remote area. As always, we could have spent weeks exploring the area, but we were on a MISSION. My motto for 2020 had been "Singapore or Bust", and it was Feb 2022 already and we had 5,000 miles to go still. Also, Screensaver had visas coming up for renewal soon, so we had to get to Sorong by March 1.

Ahhh! Sunset on the Foredeck with Friends--This is Why We Cruise!
It took a couple of days to finally clear Bacan Island.  We stopped overnight at a few small islands, and then we were treated to a long day SAIL to reach the Boo Islands. We actually caught a fish on this sail!

Oh my Paws! What is that!? Here are our anchorages between south Bacan and Boo:

Labuha       00°37.741' S / 127°27.664' E  25-45 ft mud. 4G.

Siliang       00°50.991' S / 127°43.784' E   25-50 ft sand. No cell 

Waringen   00°48.376' S / 128°09.282' E   42 ft sand. No cell.

Damar        00°59.216' S / 128°22.382' E   40-45 ft sand, 30 ft bar

Tadoku       01°08.779' S / 128°25.998' E   15 ft, shallowing slowly.

Boo Chan   01°10.948' S / 129°22.419' E   52 ft, sand, buggy

Boo Beach  01°10.378' S / 129°23.673' E  45 ft nice sand beach

Note:  All of our anchorages have been send to Terry Sargent, and are maintained in the Indonesia Anchorage gpx file maintained by Terry.  See Terry's Topics to download this file, and his accompanying satellite charts.

Beautiful Anchorage in Boo Channel
Our Track and Stops in the Boo Islands
Click on the Picture to see a larger version

We did do a little playing as we cruised through the area. We got the drones out one day and took some nice pictures. Screensaver almost lost his drone by flying it too far away while we were underway (exploring the channel at Damar). We had to turn the boat around and race back to the launch spot to try to reconnect with the drone. These pics were taken with our drone at a pretty beach on Boo
Pretty Beach Inside the Reef

The next stop was Kofiau, another group of islands a little further east. We holed up here at for a few days due to bad weather. We managed to pick up a little cell signal by motoring around one day, halfway to the town on the north side of Kofiau Island.

Our Track and Stops in Kofiau
Click on the Picture to see a larger version

Then we finally made the jump to the west end of Batanta Island. This was another long hop. We thought we had a good anchorage big enough for both boats identified, but once we got there, it was too deep right up to the reef. One boat may have been able to plant a hook somewhere, but definitely not 2. So, with the light waning and a light drizzle, we moved east along the south coast of Batanta, bay by bay, looking for a suitable anchorage. We finally found a deep bay with a river emptying into the end of the bay. Sounding it out, we found anchorable depths that looked like black sand all the way in, with enough room for 2 boats. This turned out to be such a nice rain-foresty place that we stayed for a day to enjoy the birds and the sounds of the waterfall. 00°53.806' S / 130°28.233' E

Anchored Next to a Rainforest
Birdwatching at Sunset on Batanta
We spent a few more days poking east along the south coast of Batanta before finally arriving in Sorong on February 28. We couldn't really dally, however, because Screensaver HAD to get to Sorong to renew their visas.

We spent one night at Yefman Island--the site of a World War II Japanese airfield. After walking around and asking a few of the locals, we found a few bunkers still around.

A WW2 Bunker at Yefman Island
Our last anchorage was a day anchorage off tiny/beautiful Matan Island.  Yanina just HAD to go visit the beautiful sand spit, and what looked like nice coral for snorkeling.  So we tagged along.  It does look beautiful, but it's a lousy anchorage (too much coral), the locals want to charge you for stepping ashore, and the snorkeling wasn't very good (murky water).

Beautiful Looking but Crappy Anchorage at Matan Island

An afternoon squall was brewing, so we left Screensaver there and went for a better anchorage.

Guess who we finally hooked up with in Sorong, at Wick's Tampa Garam Marina? Our old Soggy Paws. Poor girl had been stored for 2 years--the owner, whom we had hope to hook up with in 2020, had left her at the marina to fly home to Australia for 2 weeks. Then COVID happened, and he didn't get back for 2 years. There was supposed to be some caretaking going on, but no boat does well sitting for 2 years.

We did eventually meet John, and actually shared an anchorage with him for a few weeks... but that's a story for another blog post.

Beaching Soggy Paws

Yesterday we did something that we never could have done with the old Soggy Paws... we beached the cat on a nice sloping beach and did some maintenance on the underwater side.

High and Dry Doing Underwater Maintenance
It's new moon time, and the tidal range is bigger than normal, with higher highs and lower lows than other times of the month. High tide was supposed to be at 8am, so we got up early and started watching the tide mark we had set at high tide the previous evening. As soon as we saw the tide definitely going down, we started getting ready to go up on the beach. At 0810, we started engines to pull our anchor and head for the beach.

Snuggled Up to the Mangroves

We had measured depths of the water in the sand spot we had picked out, and knew we would have to nose right up to the bushes on the beach, to be in shallow enough water. We tied a rope onto a strong bush on shore and brought it out into the water, secured with a dive weight and a small buoy, to be ready to tie a bow line to.

As we slowly headed in to the beach, we dropped a Fortress anchor from the stern. This whole maneuver would have been difficult with just two of us, but we have 2 crew for the trip to Palau, and they made it easy. With Sherry driving, Liko on the stern with the stern anchor, Dave on the bow with the bow line, and Claudia in the water with a mask and snorkel, we carefully positioned Soggy Paws a few inches above the sand in as level a spot as we could find. We had to nudge the bow over a little to level things out, and tied a 3rd line off to the side to maintain our position.

Claudia Updates Dave on How We Are Positioned
So we touched the bow to the sand, and then just waited for the tide to go down. Claudia started positioning boards under our keels, to keep us from sinking in the sand too much.

Claudia Positions the First Set of Boards

Liko and Dave with the Last Board
We had tried to buy a sheet of 1/2" plywood in Sorong for this purpose, but none was available. So we ended up with a 1x8" plank, cut in 2 ft segments. We used 4 boards crosswise along the bottom of the keel.

And we picked up a little more wood from the beach to brace up underneath the rudders, which ended up sitting about 1 ft over the sand. By 0915 we had all 8 boards in place and the front end of the keel was firmly grounded. An hour later and the boat was nearly completely out of the water, and we started on the maintenance tasks.

Boards Buried in the Sand Under the Keel
Supports Under the Rudder
While we were out, we did the following:

- Changed the zincs in the saildrives
- Repaired a few nicks in the saildrives with epoxy
- Painted the new prop blade with antifoul
- Checked and adjusted the angles on all the prop blades
- Scrubbed the waterline
- Changed the oil in the port engine

One Of the SailDrive Zincs, New and Old
Claudia and Liko got a chance to break away while Dave was working on the saildrives, to go snorkel in the reef nearby, which we had previously seen.

We had an early dinner, and just waited for the tide to come up. At 7:30pm, the first board floated free, and by 8pm we had pulled ourselves backward via the stern anchor and were fully off the beach.

It was pitch black out--no moon, no stars, and a low overcast. But we had the anchor waypoint marked, so maneuvering "on instruments", I was able to get positioned over the anchor spot. It took 2 tries to get it right--the first time we ended up a little too close to the reef on one side. Too far out, and we're in 80-100 feet, and too far in, we'd swing over the shallow reef. By 8:30pm we were safely anchored. Long day, but worth it to get the zincs changed.

At 8/5/2016 12:40 AM (utc) our position was 00°46.78'S 130°44.82'E
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Cleared out of Indonesia

July 27-Aug 5

We spent a few more days playing and exploring along the north coast of Batanta, and then on July 31, headed for Sorong, about 30 miles away.

The plan for Sorong was to (a) pick up crew that were going with us to Palau (b) get re-provisioned and fueled up and (c) clear out of Indonesia.

Liko Loading Into the Dinghy
Liko and Claudia, our crew, met us on Monday afternoon, having taken the ferry down to Waisai. Liko was the instructor at Biodiversity Eco Lodge when we made our 20 dives there, and had August off. Claudia, his Chilean girlfriend, who has been traveling the world for the last year, had joined him to make this trip with us. We only knew Liko a little bit, and had never met Claudia, so we had a few trepidations about taking them on a 3 week trip. But it seems to be working out well.

Claudia is on a Grand Adventure and is always smiling and interacting with the people. Everyone wanted Selfies with Claudia!


Waiting in Line at the ATM

In the Taxi

This Taxi Driver Wanted Her Phone Number
Our biggest worry with officialdom in Sorong was our Customs paperwork. Under the new rules, we should have been able to get a 3-year "temporary importation paper" (TIP). But, we discovered when we renewed our visas a month ago in Sorong, that because we entered Indonesia via the Rally and via Sangihe (NOT an official port of entry), we only got a 3 month TIP. And there was some question whether our TIP expired on 7/27 or 8/5. Both dates were on the form, but the form is in Indonesian and Google translate helps, but is not perfect. But after several emails with ASWINDO, the agency that sponsored the Rally, they assured us that we were good until August 5. The second problem was that the Customs guy had told us that we had to have our agent contact Manado Customs (who oversees Sorong) and have our paperwork forwarded from Manado to Sorong.

So our first stop on Monday was at Customs, to make sure that all our paperwork was there and in order. The Customs guy was very nice and spoke very good English, and he said we were good to go. We made an appointment with him for Wednesday morning.


Dave Handling the Immigration Issue
The next worry was about adding two crew who had flown in to Indonesia on tourist visas, to our crewlist to check out with us on the boat. One cruiser 2 years ago had had problems doing that. He ended up essentially leaving in the middle of the night, without properly clearing out. He told everyone "Immigration doesn't want people to go out a different way than they came in." However, after further investigation--talking with another cruiser who knew the details--his problem was because his crew had overstayed their visas! I also posted on several Facebook groups for this area asking about crew flying in and leaving on the boat. Nobody had had any problems. We had talked about trying to get an agent (or local "fixer") to help us grease some palms to make it happen. But we decided to wait and see if we ran into any problems before trying that avenue.


Selfies In the Market
I spent Tuesday teaching Liko and Claudia about provisioning for 3 weeks away from civilization. We made 2 trips to the Saga supermarket and the Robinson's supermarket. Provisioning in Sorong is better than we've seen for a couple of months, but still very "out island". For example, it's difficult to find any fresh meat except chicken. Whatever imported goods are there, are VERY expensive. We did find fresh lettuce, but it was about $3 for a small head. And some "luxury" veggies like brocolli and bell peppers, as well as some CHEESE!! I just ignored the prices and stocked up on what we needed.

We also found the Telkomsel office got topped off on cell phone minutes, dropped our accumulated laundry off to be washed/dried/folded, got cash from the ATMs, and scoped out a place to go in for dinner. All of this is more difficult than in most countries we've been, because our Indonesian is almost non-existant, and very few common people speak English. Between smiles, gestures, Google Translate, and sometimes a helpful bypasser, we managed to get everything done.


The Dinghy Dock and Fuel Dock at Sorong (Behind Navy Boat)
Meanwhile, Dave was working on getting diesel fuel and gasoline, to make sure we were completely full when we left Sorong. The guys at the fuel depot behind the navy boat were very helpful and friendly. We jugged 4 25-liter jugs twice to get topped off on diesel. And a couple of jugs of gasoline.

Dave also took one of our air compressor filters into EON Engineering to be re-packed with new filter material. Wick, an Australian, tests, repairs, and refurbishes dive tanks and dive compressors.


Wednesday was checkout day. We started at Immigration, crossing our fingers that we wouldn't have any issues.

We dressed conservatively (everyone complaining about wearing long pants, collared shirts, and closed toe shoes, because of the heat). See sign at Immigration, right.

We made sure we had plenty of copies of crew lists and copies of the passport picture pages. It took about a half an hour, and we had no problem at all, nor any questions about where our crew came from. Dave double-checked every passport that we had been correctly stamped out.

Sign at Immigration

Sign Left Over from Ramadan Celebrations
At that point, we split up, and Dave headed for Customs, and we headed for the fresh veggie market. Here we stocked up on several bags full of fresh local veggies. Claudia saw a table selling beetlenut (a plant-based drug that the locals chew in this part of the world). She had always wanted to try it, so she bought a trial bundle of all the stuff needed, and got someone to explain how it was to be used. (she hasn't tried it yet).


The Beetlenut Table - Available Fresh or Dried
Dave ended up spending nearly all day trying to get finished with our clearance out. Customs wants to come out to the boat and take pictures (to make sure the boat we are clearing out is in fact the same boat that cleared in, and has all the expensive gear still aboard). Then he went to the Harbormaster, only to find out that Customs had forgotten to give him a piece of paper he needed. So back to Customs... then back to Harbormaster, only to be told that he needed to clear out with Quarantine, which is halfway across town. It was nearly 5pm before he came back to the boat, exhausted. But we had accomplished everything we needed... except for one thing.

When we were in Batanta, Dave had found a nice beach with only a slight slope, that dries at low tide. He wanted to beach the boat on the upcoming New Moon tide, to change the zincs in the outdrive. And he wanted a piece of 1/2" plywood, about 2 feet wide, to help keep the keels from sinking in the sand. So Dave called our friend Victor, a guy who speaks really good English and has a construction equipment company, to see if Victor could tell him where to get the plywood. Victor offered to get the wood we needed, and cut it to size, and deliver it to the boat. Unfortunately, Victor couldn't find 1/2" plywood anywhere. So we adjusted the requirement to 8" wide boards, cut in 2-ft lengths. Unfortunately, Victor's guys misunderstood the discussion, and cut the 8" wide boards into 2" wide strips!! So instead of delivering our wood on Weds afternoon, Victor called apologising, and said he'd get the correct wood to us in the morning.

So instead of taking off for Batanta and our haulout place at 8am, we were stuck waiting around for Victor to deliver the wood we needed. That gave me a chance to have one last crack at Saga, to pick up a couple more heads of lettuce, and a batch of fresh shrimp.


Finally Underway
Finally we were away at about noon, with the wood onboard. Now we were worried about getting to our anchorage 32 miles away before dark. But for once, we had uncharacteristically good wind, on our quarter, and later on our beam. With a double-reefed main and a single reef in the genoa, and a little current behind us, we were making 10 knots over the bottom in 22 knots of wind. Wheeee!! Everyone onboard had a blast, and got a little sail-handling experience, and a turn at the wheel. We arrived at our anchorage well before dark, and had a chance to do another recon of the beach that we were planning to beach on the next day.

It was nice being at anchor in nice calm clean water again! (Sorong is a fairly dirty harbor and has a nasty chop when the wind opposes the current).

We go into the beach on the high tide tomorrow, and will spend the day beached, scrubbing the bottom and doing saildrive maintenance. Then we'll be off toward Palau (doing day-hops around the E end of Waigeo for a couple of days).
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At 8/5/2016 12:40 AM (utc) our position was 00°46.78'S 130°44.82'E