Equator to Ambon

Kawe – Equator Island

I wonder if they have this right.

The Raja Ampat Equator Monument on Kawe is supposed to be at 00°00’00” – 130°07’28″E – bang on the equatorial line of latitude. But my phone didn’t agree, and neither did our handheld radio’s built-in GPS.

I’m sure there’s a logical explanation. The monument was built in 2014, so it has nothing to do with GPS accuracy; that changed in 2000 thanks to Bill Clinton’s discontinuation of Selective Availability.  So it’s either that both my devices are out of whack, the monument has moved (which wouldn’t be a surprise given the state of it), or the device used to locate it was a bit off.

Either way, we must have crossed the equator several times over the last few days, so we have heaped much praise and thanks on King Neptune for letting us safely pass.

Following our epic adventure to visit the equator monument, we dinghied back to Jamala and toasted Neptune again with a gin and tonic, hummus and crackers together with the crew of Sand Dallor.

Heading back to Ambon

After leaving Kawe the next morning, we stopped overnight at Gag Island with Sand Dallor. Despite looking like an open roadstead, our anchorage on the north of the island was blissfully calm. And the holding excellent in the sandy bottom that gradually shoals up to the beach.

I’m sure there is much to see here, but we were on another mission to get south to join the rest of the rally fleet that didn’t go to Raja Ampat. So we set off again the next morning.

After an overnight sail, beating into wind, we arrived at our next anchorage at Pulau Malawa, just off the north coast of Seram Island. Our initial plan was to head from there to Tifu, where the Sail 2 Indonesia rally boats were gathering for the welcome ceremony for rally participants.

But, after looking at the number of boats already at Tifu, it became clear we wouldn’t comfortably be able to squeeze Jamala in with the crowd of yachts already in that relatively small anchorage, so we decided to go back to Ambon instead. At least there, we could fill up with good fuel and reprovision for a few weeks.

We transited the narrow passage at Haya, at the western end of Seram island, with no issues. Although there appears to be a continuous north-bound current here that only changes in intensity – not direction – so our speed over ground through the pass slowed from a brisk 7 knots to a sedate 4.5 knots

After passing Haya, we were met by the full flow of that northerly current and southerly wind. Motorsailing into it gave us 3.5 knots over ground; motor tacking gave us 8 knots over ground, nominally in the right direction, but an average of only 4 knots towards our destination. Our track looked like a jagged sawblade. The upshot was that our planned arrival of 4 p.m. became 8 p.m. when it was well and truly dark.

Ambon is not the place to sail in poor visibility. So, to avoid clattering into one of the many random FADs, we made our way to the southerly coast as quickly as possible to pick up our previous track to Jefry’s fish farm. That was a tense couple of hours, requiring a sharp lookout augmented by binoculars, which improve night vision better than you might think.

As it was too late to head straight to Jefry’s, we anchored close by in a spot marked by several boats in the Zulu app as being good – using radar and depth to work our way in to drop the anchor in 12 metres and hopefully away from any unseen hazards. Fortunately, that worked. When we woke up the next morning and could see where we were, nothing was close to us apart from the odd plastic bottle floating by. More on that later.

Relieved that we hadn’t parked on top of something we shouldn’t have, we motored around the corner to Jefry’s, where we rafted up to another Sail 2 Indonesia rally boat – Waypoint, who helped us wrestle with our lines and get sorted out.

It happened to be Olivia’s birthday, so we invited the crew of Windsong over for drinks along with S/Y Waypoint. Unfortunately, it was raining so hard that when Olivia arrived, she looked like a drowned rat. But we allowed her to use a robe and drink her Prosecco in style.

Ambon Tour

After getting the diesel sorted out with the help of Jefry, who came to the petrol station with me with his empty cans and helped return them full, we set out on a tour of the island with Frank and Olivia, who were also back in Ambon, on Windsong.

The tour started here, at the back of the old fish market near Jefry’s place:

The photograph may show that the approach to handling rubbish differs from that in the UK, for example. There is litter in most places. This isn’t a judgement – it’s reminiscent of the attitude in 1970s Britain when it seemed to be perfectly acceptable to throw your empty fag packets and other detritus out the car window.

The above, of course, wasn’t part of the tour. That started at the Museum Siwa Lima:

The person below is a highly significant figure in Mollacan history. Martha Christina Tiahahu fought against Dutch colonialism and is regarded as a national hero. You can learn more about her on Wikipedia. She was a bit of a hard case.

Another national hero is Pattimura, the captain who Martha Christina followed. He, too, has a statue or two erected in his honour – although I’m not sure this is an accurate depiction.

Then, it was off to the World Peace Gong. There are several World Peace Gongs installed throughout the world; this one was installed in 2009. The surface of the gong includes the national flags of all countries around the world and symbols related to religions, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

The trigger for this installation may well have been the conflict in 1999 between Christians and Muslims throughout the Malaku region. The violence began in January 1999 and continued until February 2002, resulting in the displacement of 30,000 people and over 160 deaths throughout Malaku. Historical grievances, demographic changes, the presence of migrant groups, and plain old thuggery fueled the conflict.

The split of religions in Ambon is approximately 60% Christian, mostly Protestant, and 40% Muslim. Now, during higher-risk periods – such as Christmas and Eid – Muslim representatives will stand guard at Christian churches, and Christian representatives will do the same at the mosques.

Then, a bit of dancing with the locals.

For some reason, Olivia draws the local people to her—especially the kids—like the pied piper. Something about the way she looks compels them to want to have a photograph taken with her. We get this a bit, but whereas we have minor celebrity status, she is definitely an A-lister.

One of the local dishes is Papeda, a congee made from Sago starch that resembles mucus or thick wallpaper paste, depending on which analogy you prefer. It was accompanied by tongkol, a slightly spicy yellow soup with fish. It’s not as bad as it looks.

Shopping Expedition

The next day, with help from a local agent and school teacher, Agnes, we went shopping at the supermarket and to the outdoor fresh market, which was a cacophony of colour and chaos. Scooters are all around, even in places you think they would never go. It defies logic. Agnes also helped us with our quarantine certificate renewal, which would otherwise entail a trip to Bau Bau.

Some enterprising stallholder dipped these chicks in dye in an attempt to target a younger shopper. The RSPCA would be having a field day.

And then it was back to Jamala with our shopping for our departure the next day to Wakatobi.