Belitung Island

Before we move onto the next Indonesian island I wanted to post one more picture from our Borneo river trip. This is Chris and me heading up river --- or more accurately it is Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn playing us in the 1951 movie version The African Queen. It's kind of what it felt like.

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After the river trip we headed down river and anchored for the night near the river entrance. We left early while it was still dark for a 200 mile overnight passage to Nangka Island. It was a good, fast passage with plenty of wind and not many fishing boats. We only anchored overnight at Nangka and took off the next morning as it was overcast and didn't look inviting in that weather. We motored most of the day to get to Belitung. Belitung is a decent sized island off the east coast of Sumatra with about a quarter million inhabitants. The island was British for awhile till it was traded to the Dutch in 1824. It exports pepper and tin. The large Dutch mining company Billiton was named after the island and founded to mine tin here in 1851 (it has now merged with the Australian company BHP, Broken Hill Proprietary).

There's an interesting, cruiser friendly resort on the beach near the anchorage, The Rock and Wreck Dive Resort https://rockandwreckresort.com/. It is constructed out of old wrecked boats, along with old, abandoned houses that were on the island. They were dismantled and rebuilt onsite as cottages for the guests.

Belitung is known for its granite boulders and rock islets, some of them looking a bit like the boulders in Virgin Gorda, in the British Virgin Islands.

There's a well maintained, Dutch colonial lighthouse that was built in 1842. Nice views from the top.

A view from the top of he lighthouse looking down.

Many of the tourists that come to Belitung are from Java. While Indonesia is a majority Islamic country, it is generally practiced at a fairly liberal level, with some areas being much more conservative in dress and practices, as you can see the dress of these two tourists.

Walking along the beaches in Indonesia is often a bit distressing with the amount of plastic trash you see. Chris is always hunting shells-- also a tough thing to find here as most are broken open so the critter can be eaten by the locals. And I'm always looking for Gold Doubloons. Over the years Chris has a found a lot more good shells than I have found doubloons -- but I'm not giving up yet. Sometimes you do run into some good castaway junk. Not too confident on what this bamboo and hammer are -- a drum, a mortar and pestle, a ???? Either way its now in my keepsake locker.

There are hundreds of fishing boats in the area along with many re-purposed to tourist boats. In the picture you can see a palm log tied securely under the bow of this boat. There is another one at the stern. It is used to hold the boat upright when it is dragged up the beach a ways and awaiting low tide. At low tide they put palm leaves under the boat and light them. This burning and smoking kills the worms that get into the keel wood. The keels are made from a single, long piece of wood that is nominally called mahogany. It is one of the many tropical hardwoods on the local islands.

The snorkeling hasn't been much here, as the reefs are fished out by the locals and the water hasn't been that clear. It's still nice to jump into the warm water for a look around in the morning while the winds are still low and its not doing an afternoon rain.

I got my eyes on you!

A sea urchin in the diadematids family. These are the only sea urchins that have eyes. 

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Cruisers notes:
Leaving the Kumai River there is a good anchorage near the peninsula just off the river mouth. It seems a lot nicer than the one mentioned in the Scott guide that is pretty close to the busy channel. We headed in along the beach at low tide over a section with minimum depth of 9.8 feet. There were two boats anchored there. We continued on toward the pier. Before getting there, there is a 20 foot deep 'hole' area that we anchored in. Don't need much scope as its sand and up hill in all directions. It is well away from the channel and the tugs with tows making their sharp turns.
02*54.274S 111*42.273E
Passage to Nangka. This is about a 200 mile run, so we left at o'dark thirty and worked our way up the channel and out the bay in the dark. Had a great sail the rest of the way. Downwind 15-23kts. Only saw a few fishing boats. A fair amount of commercial traffic. Two of the tugs with tows called us up on the VHF to confirm passing.
Nangka: the reef sticks out further than you think as you approach. There are two small moorings on the inside that can have 3 or 4 fishing boats on them in the daytime, as they wait to night fish. Everywhere behind the reef is deep. We anchored in 80 feet at 02*29.473S 108*32.121E The bottom was a surprising good holding mix of sand/mud/shells.
To Belitung: No wind, a day motor. We went in and anchored in the B anchorage from the Scott guide. The winds pick up more easterly in the afternoon and make the A,B and C anchorages not very friendly. The E anchorage is better, but it can still get windy enough to have a wet dinghy ride. Good and safe dinghy landing at Ringos restaurant (ask someone in the anchorage to point it out). He can deliver fuel and arrange a driver and car to town, which is 45 minutes away. Good fresh veggie market in town and that's where you do any Immigration or Customs business.
02*33.153S 107*39.723E in 18feet sand.