Sailing Pulau Bawean

Bawean

Bawean is a little jewel in the Java Sea! We spent six days exploring this beautiful area. White sandy beaches, uninhabited islands, coral reefs, monkeys and friendly local people. After the big city chaos of Surabaya, Bawean was just what we needed! We left Surabaya and motor-sailed into headwinds as we crossed to Pulau Bawean. The crossing took 13 hours, and Dwayne had to do most of it as it was the first time I’d had to take seasickness tablets for a while, and they knocked me out. We had timed the crossing to arrive in the middle of the day. We were thankful that we had no visitors to the boat when we arrived and could just relax.

The following day as Dwayne was making breakfast, we had our first visitor. It just so happened that Dwayne was boiling an extra couple of eggs to save for our lunch, so we offered him breakfast. Our visitor, Wayan, enjoyed his eggs, toast and coffee as we chatted. (He ate one egg and stuck the other in his pocket… for his lunch!) He spoke no English, so I got a lot of practice with my Bahasa. I tried to ask him if it was alright to burn our rubbish on the beach. We were shocked but not surprised by his response when he indicated we should just throw it overboard (needless to say, we didn’t!) After a couple of hours, Wayan left with some magazines, a pair of sunnies and an Indonesian – English conversation book, which was preferable to the binoculars and Dwayne’s fins he wanted!

Pulau Noko

We anchored in several places around the east coast of Bawean during our time there. Whilst moving to another anchorage, we passed a tiny uninhabited cay and decided to anchor there for lunch. It was a beautiful sunny day, and after lunch, we took our snorkel gear and paddle boards and headed to the cay for a look around. On our charts, we couldn’t see a name for it, but a sign on the beach said it was Pulau Noko.

We paddled around the cay and then did a drift snorkel back to our boat. It was a beautiful snorkel, and the water was surprisingly clear. I found a clownfish living in a beautiful purple sea anemone and saw the biggest cuttlefish I have ever chanced upon in the water. Dwayne found a couple of beautiful orange spotted nudibranchs. Unfortunately, my Gopro cover now has a broken latch, so I could not get any photos!

From Pulau Noko, we anchored in a little bay on another uninhabited island just off of Bawean. We put in our paddle boards and went ashore to burn our rubbish and enjoyed a bottle of bubbly before we went for a walk to explore. This island is covered in jungle and is beautiful. As we were preparing to head back to Thorfinn, we saw about 20 – 30 monkeys crossing a small beach and heading up a hill on the point of the island. We went back to the boat and, as the sunset, we relaxed in our beanbags, on the deck, watching the monkeys in the trees.

Cooking on the Beach

We loved this spot and decided to stay another night and cook bebek betutu (duck with betutu spice) on the beach. So while I made betutu spice, Dwayne built an oven on the beach before returning to help me take everything ashore on our paddle boards.

The oven looked incredible, and we just hoped it would work. The duck needed to be cooked for about four hours. As the only wood on the beach was driftwood, bamboo and coconuts, we could not get coals, so we had to feed the fire constantly. The oven worked well. However, not everything went 100% to plan; the oven half collapsed during the cooking, and we had to rebuild it. And a couple of times, we had to dampen a fire when the oven’s roof caught alight. It was a considerable effort but well worth it; I even cooked rice in a length of bamboo!

Everything turned out beautifully. We both agreed it was the best duck we’d had… not bias or anything! After dinner, we packed up and paddled back to the boat with the leftover duck… Dwayne was already thinking about the red duck curry he wanted for dinner the next day, yummo.

The following day we had some more visitors. Ari offered to take us ashore to Sankapura to show us around. We told him we would be going ashore the next day, and he said he’d meet us at 0900. Ari is a nice guy who can speak a little English, and Dwayne was happy chatting and offered Ari and his friend Sela a beer and a scotch. Ari was so happy he started singing and Dwayne poured more scotch… next minute Ari was in tears as he talked about his government and the international people on death row. Talk about an ‘emotional roller coaster’!

The next morning we went to Sankapura in the dinghy. Finding somewhere to leave the dinghy was a little tricky until some helpful locals told us we could tie up to their boat.

Exploring Pulau Bawean

We headed down the road and found Ari on his scooter. We hired his scooter and headed off around the island. There is one main road that circumnavigates the entire island, and it was surprisingly well maintained in most places… where it was not, it was terrible. We were about a quarter of the way around the island when the rain started. We stopped under a shelter and waited for the rain to ease. When the rain had eased a little, we hopped back on the bike and started on our way again. It wasn’t long before we had to seek shelter again as it began to pour down. We stopped at a little shop and sat drinking coffee and chatting with the owners – a grandmother, mother and children. They knew no English, so it was good practice again for our Bahasa. The rain slowed down, and we set off again.

We hadn’t gone far before the rain lashed at us. We found a little warung, purchased morning tea, and once again sat chatting with all the people visiting the ‘bule’ (westerners). That little warung was soon full of women and children, and even a couple of men came for a chat. One of the young ladies and a teenage girl spoke a little English, and they helped me when “saya tidak mengerti” (I don’t understand). As always, when chatting with the Indonesians, there was lots of smiles, laughter and fun.

We left there, and the rain stayed at a drizzle until we returned to the other side of the island. About five minutes from our destination, the skies opened up, and an indescribable amount of water bucketed down! We arrived back at the warung where we were to meet Ari. We were absolutely saturated and had a big lunch of fried fish, chicken curry and rice with all the trimmings. After lunch, we decided to wait for the rain to stop before taking the dinghy back to the boat. The rain didn’t look like it was going to abate, so after a couple of hours, we jumped into the dinghy and battered our way through the rain and back to Thorfinn. There is something so lovely about putting up one’s feet and watching the telly on a wet afternoon… even if it is not cold.

We really liked our time at Bawean. It is a beautiful place – a jewel surrounded by the Java Sea. We both agree it is one of the nicest places we have been to in Indonesia. It was cleaner than most, with some areas we rode through having very little visible litter. We never know what to expect when visiting an island new to us, and I haven’t been to a place that I could say I disliked. Still, here we found a special place of mountains, forests, vivid green rice paddies and beautiful people. Just when we think it can’t get any better, we sail on, soon to stumble across another fantastic place, animal, person or experience. My next blog has all four! Tune in when I write about our time with the orang-utans! Sampai Jumpa Lagi.

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