Escape Velocity

Most of the history and clashes between the Dutch and the English in the spice trade occurred on the nearby islands of Ai and Run, within easy eyesight of each other. So why pile into a 30 foot long narrow twin outboard for a rollercoaster spray-filled hour and a half when you’re already well aware of what happened there? Turns out I never pass up a chance to touch history.

By the time we cleared the anchorage our skipper leaned over the 40 horsepower screaming outboard he was using to pull start the 40 hp outboard beside it, setting it to full scream. He locked the engine straight ahead while making course corrections with the original engine. Careening from wave to wave we did a close drive by of Ai on the way to Run. They really are very small but steep little islands, tiny specks out in the middle of nowhere. It’s a mystery to Yours Truly how they ended up with such unique flora and is it a blessing or a curse?

The approach into Run was reef strewn and incredibly shallow, causing our boat to crunch on the crushed coral and bounce occasionally. It’s true what the old salts say that you can smell Run before you even get there. We had to bail out over the transom, squeezing passed the two outboards and into the water. We walked maybe two kilometers along a sinuous path.

You really can see the difference the spice trade makes in their everyday lives. Their houses are nicer, their villages are nicer, even their cats are better fed. They complain that with so many competitors it’s hard to make any money in the spice trade but over time nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon have been very good for them, that is when the Dutch weren’t trying to kill them.

The governor’s house was turned from ruin to rubble as was the fort in the 1988 earthquake so our guide said we weren’t going up there but I still had that tingling sensation, let’s call it a profound sense of history, when walking through the village.

Run, after all, had the nutmeg seed trees that most of the world’s nutmeg is descended from and knowing the Dutch mania for spice trade monopoly, the Brits got them to throw in Manhattan as a sweetener during negotiations at the treaty of Breda, including a twin of the Fort Belgica whose walls were eventually paved over in Manhattan, and are now called Wall St.

With every turn we were met with the sweet perfume of cloves or nutmeg drying spread out in the sun. Heady stuff.

On the way to Ai we stopped on an uninhabited little islet called Neilaka for a picnic lunch on the beach right off of Run.

The routine was different on Ai where they let us off at one end of the village but picked us up after our stroll up and down through town.

Ai’s fort was Dutch built but appropriated by the Brits who, with the natives’ help, held on against persistent Dutch attack for quite awhile.

On the way down we were shown our guide and boat driver’s beautiful guest estates. I may be in the wrong business.

We all clambered aboard between the twin outboards and quickly collided with the wind blown waves and spray.

Well worth it.

On a hot sunny day we joined a tour to the adjacent island of Pulau Besar to see the nutmeg trees that put these islands on the map.

A wet landing took us to the town of Lonthoir, an obviously prosperous settlement whose residents seem to try to outdo each other in Crayola color combinations.

These islands are steep, and the fitness program on my phone was delighted that I was finally exercising my passage-weakened legs.

The tropical sun is hard on the nutmeg trees, so the planters shade them with huge and beautiful almond trees that are so big I can’t get a whole tree in the frame.

At the plantation the owner demonstrated how they pick the nutmegs with what looks like a lacrosse stick, then he cut open several nutmegs and almonds so we could all smell and taste the fresh fruit and nuts.

Then we were on to cinnamon, another of the traditional crops of these spice islands. We all stood around like Ewell Gibbons chewing on tree bark and agreed that its fresh, pungent, bordering on hot spicy flavor reminded us of the candy Red Hots.

Walking back through town we saw nutmegs and cloves drying in front of many of the houses and realized the spices are produced not just by the plantations but by nearly everyone on the islands. The scent is nearly intoxicating.

We climbed a little further to the remnants of the Dutch fort for a spectacular view of the volcano and the anchorage below.

We ended the tour with cinnamon tea and nutmeg coffee and more of the friendly faces we’ve become accustomed to here in Banda.

I guess when you’ve got the only trees in the world growing “golden fruit” the next thing you’ll need is a way to stop people from taking it. For centuries the Arabs, Chinese, Javanese, and Buris merchants queued up to do business with the Bandanese. Using these middlemen Venice amassed vast fortunes reselling nutmeg as a preventative for the plague, kind of a snake oil scam, along with cloves and cinnamon.

Trouble started when the Portuguese and Spanish arrived in 1512 and decided that wouldn’t it be nice to monopolize the trade? Then came the well-armed Dutch, with their own dreams of monopoly and forced 40 tribal elders to sign an exclusive contract, then paid a few Japanese samari assassins to behead them all. The Dutch sailed away thinking that was done and dusted.

Several years later they sailed back, furious to find the English doing a brisk business in Pulau Banda Besar and had, in an especially cheeky move, established forts in Pulau Run and Pulau Ai. The Dutch played cat and mouse with the English, but in 1621 the VOC, under their new governor Jan Pieterszoon Coen, ordered a virtual genocide of the Bandanese thinking to replace them with enslaved workers. Just a few hundred survivors escaped to the Kei Islands, nearly 200 miles east.

Fort Belgica is the largest historic fort in Indonesia. Construction began in 1611 high above Little Bandaneira because it became apparent that the lower bastion of Fort Nassau was well within range of Bandanese fire arrows from the heights above.

Evidence of the power struggle is all around you on these sleepy isles. Each of the dozen or so bow chasers scattered about Bandaneira represents a ship on the bottom.

The Dutch and English were at loggerheads for years, culminating in 1667 with the Treaty of Breda in which the Dutch gave New Amsterdam (Manhattan) to the English in exchange for Run, finally giving the Dutch their long sought monopoly.

The English eventually solved the problem of how to successfully transplant nutmeg to India and their West Indies colonies, most notably Grenada, where we first saw nutmeg growing and processing.

As soon as we set foot on shore we fell in love with Banda Neira, the administrative center of the Spice Islands. It’s got the same lively, bordering on chaotic vibe as Bali, but on a much smaller scale and without the Hindu influence. People here are Muslim and the competing muezzins ring out a modern jazz symphony of aural ouch four times a day. But the people are as friendly and fun loving as we’ve seen so far, and obviously used to foreign visitors, as evidenced by the many shop signs in English. We’re using our Google Translate app far less that we did in Debut.

Every shop displays nutmegs, cinnamon and nutmeg candy, made from the dried and spiced meat of the nutmeg, something we haven’t seen before.

Our local host for the rally boats has arranged various tours and dinners on an ad hoc basis, so while we decide what we want to do on an organized jaunt vs. on our own we’re just wandering the streets of Banda Neira, appreciating the Graham Greene atmosphere of slightly decaying colonial architecture.

The spice that made the islands famous and the bitter conflict between the Dutch and the English it caused are evident everywhere.

But this is not a reconstructed Disneyland of tourist fakery, but rather a lively community with, of course, a traditional market, always my favorite destination.

The locals seem to absorb the influx of visitors with good cheer while still going about the daily business of living.

We have a lot more to see and do on these tiny islands. Another day. We’ve got time.

We have arrived at the legendary Spice Islands, a dream come true for Jack.

We measure time and distance differently on a sailboat. Getting to far flung Banda Island became a difficult calculus due to distance and the uncertainty of the velocity of the trade winds. Our goal was to reach Banda with just one overnight sail but the distance was on the edge of what we could safely cover in 36 hours. We scoured the charts for an interim stop to knock the mileage down and found two possibilities, one with a somewhat dodgy anchorage some thirty miles away and one at Pulau Tayandu which would take just twenty miles out of the 190 mile journey, but seemed to have a secure harbor. You really don’t want to be running around these reef strewn waters at night so we’ll see how far we get and pull in for an overnight rest stop.

Once again the steady trades were dead downwind so it was jib to the left and mainsail to the right, wing and wing, which EV does so well even in these strong trade winds. While most of the monohulls gybed back and forth, keeping the wind near 150 degrees, we just left it near 180 degrees right on the rhumbline, and had a cuppa Joe. Yours Truly is a rhumbline kind of guy, not as fast but so refined.

While rounding Pulau Tayandu we had a look in and Marce said, “good enough,” so we poked about trying to find bottom that we can reach with our anchor and finally just decided to do as the locals do and sidled up to whatever these are and anchored in thirty feet.

None of the locals speak English so it’s difficult to find out why they do this but a cruiser that was anchored here said they had a big wedding yesterday, but my money’s on camouflage to fool fish into thinking the boat is a just a pile of reeds to hide under.

At first light we weighed anchor with a long way to travel to reach the famous Banda Islands. There were quite a few boats anchored in another bay south of us so suddenly the chart plotter was alive with AIS targets. Should be interesting at night. Occasionally huge rollers would hiss across our downwind course and smack EV with a staggering blow on her flanks leaving the autopilot with a heavy load to right our course, but for the most part conditions were tolerable while making 5-6kts.

Our chart plotter gives us a running ETA and the next day as we raised Banda through the mist, old Ray the autopilot swore we would be in the Spice Islands by 4:00 pm. After a good long sniff around this very deep harbor we decided on 35ft. on the edge of a scary reef just next to the huge Welcome to Banda Naira sign which has the added benefit of watching the party lighting change colors close up.

I’ve been reading and dreaming about the Spice Islands since I was a little kid. It always seemed to me that so much global history and wealth beyond measure was played out on the most unlikely of stages on a tiny speck on the other side of the earth. I can’t believe I’m actually here. We’re now part of the view. Somebody pinch me.

Our weeklong stay in Debut gave us an opportunity to ease into Indonesia, learn a few critical phrases, get accustomed to what’s available in the markets, and reacquaint ourselves with the high-finance feel of the currency, where 100,000 rupiah is approximately $10AUD. We find it easier to do the mental arithmetic to Aussie dollars — knock off four zeros — than the more headscratching conversion to USD, which we haven’t used in years anyway.

Our little town of Debut has very little in the way of shops and supplies so a local taxi or van is in order for a 20 to 30 minute drive into Langgur where an ATM coughs up a maximum of 2,500,000 rupiah, about $175US. The wad of bills challenges the Velcro on my wallet and I have to find alternative ways of carrying money.

The fresh market is typical, and in a few visits we’ve learned what’s readily available — bok choy, tomatoes, eggplant, ladyfinger bananas — and what’s not, most notably mangoes, which we learned are out of season, and much in the way of fresh herbs. Everyone is patient and helpful as we navigate the ways of the marketplace and the language.

The big surprise for me is how difficult it is to find vegetarian food in restaurants. During our sojourns into town, and also at our rally dinners, there isn’t much in the way of food for me to eat, and when I ask if vegetarian food is available I’m met with puzzled looks. This is not what I expected in Indonesia and I’m hoping it’s just the case in these particular islands, where fishing is the dominant industry.

We stayed behind the day much of the fleet departed for our next stop because I wanted to catch up on laundry and get the boat more organized after the passage from Australia. We also wanted to walk the road along the shore to see more of the village and stretch our legs a bit before heading back out to sea.

Everyone wants a ‘selfie,’ by which they mean either they want us to take their picture or they want to take our picture with them. We’ve posed for more photos than we can count.

And now it’s time to go, a little less than 200 miles west, to a destination that Jack has dreamed of for decades.

Even in the best of times plumbing is a curse. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “You can’t expect that fitting to mate with this fitting, pal. That’s an NPT while this is an NPR with a twist.” (I made that last bit up, so don’t try this at home.)

So it’s never going to mate, Mate, and it’s always going to leak and blow your butt to kingdom come! So you’ve got Imperial, which sounds rich; metric, which is boring and involves counting teeny tiny little increments; and then you’ve got US stuff which as far as I can tell somebody just made up a long time ago. As if that isn’t bad enough I give you LPG tank fittings. I’ve been chasing the correct fittings halfway around the world. It got so bad in OZ that I had to make a beeline to a marina in Gladstone because Escape Velocity’s propane system, which admittedly was about as Rube Goldberg as it gets, started to leak and I simply could not stem the flow with the bits I had on board. In my defense I’d like to say that Australia makes some of your more bizarre propane tanks without regard to any US standardized dimension or design. So a lot of in the field adjustment was necessary just to connect the gas fitting (which we’ll call a POL) to the tank. Of course those Aussie jokesters use backwards internal threads while the US uses a POL with external threads with a modicum of reverse compatibility. You should have seen the look I got from that hardware store kid when he showed me that you just stick it inside and it’ll screw right in. “How long you been down here, Mate?”

Now, Yours Truly has insisted on having three 20lb propane tanks aboard. One to show, one to go, and an extra one to reach for when everything else goes pear shaped. Things go pear shaped with alarming regularity out here. EV has a nice molded-in fiberglass LPG tank compartment right beneath your feet as you steer the boat. Have I mentioned that your humble skipper lost the discussion with the powers that be about why the hell do we need three 20lb propane tanks on board when we have never needed the extra tank? Yes, but I’d call that sound weight management.

So after 750nm we pulled into Debut, Indonesia, dropped anchor, and unexpectedly ran out of propane. That’s a concern because, of course, Indonesia uses a tank fitting that is unique in all the world and they don’t want you buying an Indonesian adaptor, which would make it an Indonesian to Aussie POL and it is illegal for them to fill Aussie or US type tanks regardless even if you’d had the foresight or eyesight to read the fine print and found a rare Indo adaptor. Just don’t look for one here.

So where was I? Oh yes. Up to the bow locker to lug the only other 20lb tank back to the propane compartment, and this is a full one judging by its weight. Out of the hole with the spent tank and in goes…it doesn’t fit! It will not go down into the compartment, which means you can’t stand or really even sit comfortably at the wheel and steer! After ruminating over my options and measuring this fat boy tank I realized that a 41 1/2″ tank will not go into a 40″ compartment. Luckily another boat volunteered their bespoke Aussie POL to Aussie POL assembly with a nice stainless reinforced hose to connect them.

We will decant the gas from the tank that doesn’t fit to the tank that does.

After prying Fatboy out of the compartment I suspended the donor tank upside down from our jib halyard and our empty tank was placed in a trug filled with water and covered with wet towels to keep a temperature differential. I will say that a lot of gurgling and sloshing commenced, sounding for all the world like a terribly upset stomach, as soon as the valves were opened. That might have been my stomach. I rigged a fish scale, yes I have a fish scale, to Fatboy and watched as it got lighter and lighter so I knew the LPG was going somewhere. We gave it four hours and the tank felt kinda full so I lowered it right down into the compartment and Bob’s your uncle.

Now we’re cookin’ with gas!

Of course that only solves today’s problem and we will need propane in about three months and only have one usable tank. But kicking the can down the road is a kind of victory, but with a twist.

For our journey through Indonesia we have, for the first time ever, joined a rally. This is an organized cruise where boats travel the same itinerary, gathering at prearranged destinations where local organizations welcome the boats with various events.

We did this because the bureaucracy of Indonesia has traditionally been difficult to navigate. We understand that it’s become less complicated recently and several of our cruiser friends made reasonably easy journeys on their own, but we made the decision to facilitate the paperwork process and signed up.

So far it’s been a mixed blessing. It’s nice to meet other cruisers, some of whom we’ve seen in anchorages going back for years but never actually met. It’s a good international group, with mostly Europeans — from Germany, Switzerland, France, Sweden, Denmark, England, Ireland — along with Americans, Aussies and Kiwis and one Brazilian. I haven’t met everyone yet so there might be others. We haven’t enjoyed this mixed a group since New Zealand.

On the other hand, the locals, at least here in Debut, are so excited to have this many visitors that they put on an enervating schedule of events that we can’t keep up with. It’s party time for them and a bit much for many of us. Add in that any event in this part of the world involves audio speakers turned up to eleven, and we are drained at the end of the day and long for the peace and quiet of remote anchorages.

The good news is that we are free to go off on our own and drop in and out of the rally schedule as we wish, and luckily we don’t have to check in and out of every port of call. That simplifies life for us because the authorities, as lovely and friendly as they are, have a different definition of efficiency and we must draw on the patience we developed while cruising the Caribbean. Everything takes time and a smile and a book to read while you wait.

We escaped to the waterfront during a particularly loud presentation to enjoy a little quiet time. How the locals aren’t all deaf by puberty is a mystery to me.

Everyone wants their picture taken, or to take ours.

Indonesia’s alternative to face painting: henna hands.