Adventure
The good ship Adventure was certainly true to her name, and to this day I am grateful to the owner, David Blakely, for giving me the opportunity to come along. Our course took us across the Tasman sea, then up the East coast of Australia, passing within sight of Norfolk Island, home of the Bounty mutineers; past New Caledonia, where we were buzzed at masthead level by a French Coastguard jet fighter; through Torres Straight and into the Coral Sea, where we made our first landfall after thirty days at sea, in the city of Kupang, West Timor.
The crew of ten were an interesting mix, of a variety of ages, sexes and professions, and for the most part everyone got on well and pulled their weight. I was befriended by Meli and Tafale Matafeo, two Samoan brothers, and Tafale's girlfriend, Megan. From Timor, we island-hopped through the Indonesian Archipelago tailed by an Indonesian warship, a welcome companion, considering the region's reputation for incidents of piracy. We passed Flores, Sulawesi, Komodo, where we stopped for a couple of days to check out the legendary Komodo Dragons, Lombok, the Gili Islands and then Bali.
Bali was a fantastic experience! The overwhelming friendliness of the people, the beautiful countryside and the fact that we were treated as guests of honour by the Arung Samudra organising committee all combined to make our time there extremely memorable. I spent a few days away from the boat in the company of a charming and attractive young American photographer named Sue Brodsky, exploring the more interesting parts of the island to be found away from touristy Kuta beach. Once back aboard, there was a seemingly endless stream of functions, parties and official events to attend, but finally we sailed out of Denpasar harbour with all our colours flying, in the midst of a fleet of around 40 tall ships from around the world, soon to be our competition in the race.
The starting line of the 1995 Bali to Jakarta Tall Ships Race was a visual treat! Imagine, if you will, a fleet of over 40 tall ships, ranging in size from Adventure, itself no midget at 126', all the way up to a couple of 400+' behemoths, all circling and jockeying for position on an invisible line between two marshal's boats. Since the great naval battles of the pre-steam era, the sight of such a collection of tall ships in action are few and far between, but absolutely not to be missed. I still regret that I didn't have a camera on hand to capture the spectacle.
David had a tentative agreement to sell the Adventure to the Indonesian government, and so, in addition to our original crew, we took a complement of Indonesian crew aboard, with the near-impossible task of teaching them the ropes during the course of the race. On arrival in Jakarta, David completed his transaction, and Adventure became the sail training vessel Arung Samudra of the Indonesian Navy.
After two more weeks aboard, during which time I was employed by the Indonesian Government as an advisor, I headed off alone, for the first time, and traveled to Jogjakarta, also on Java, to see the famous ancient Buddhist temple complex of Borobodur and the adjacent Hindu ruins of Parambanan. I then crossed to Sumatra by roach-infested ferry, and gradually made my way up that island, spending several days each in the hill town of Bukkit Tinggi, the spectacular crater lakes of Lake Meninjau and Lake Toba, and the Orangutan research station of Bukkit Lawang. Sumatra is an beautiful and amazingly lush island, which, while still possessing much untouched rainforest cover, is rapidly being stripped of its oil, mineral and timber wealth by basically unregulated commercial interests; sadly an all-too-common story in this part of the world.
After two-and-a-half months in Indonesia, I waved farewell to the world's fourth most populous country as I boarded the fast ferry in Medan, headed across the narrow Straights of Malacca, bound for Penang in Malaysia. >>>