Sunday, September 29, 2019

Sailing Indonesia's Eastern Islands

August 25. On our first overnight sail, we crossed the Wallace line.  Wikipedia: "The Wallace Line or Wallace's Line is a faunal boundary line drawn in 1859 by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and named by English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, that separates the ecozones of Asia and Wallacea, a transitional zone between Asia and Australia."

We had been warned that this inter-island patch of water can be rough, and indeed the Pan Orama II rocked noticeably, but it wasn't nearly as bad as other rough seas we had experienced, and the rocking may have lulled us to sleep.



We awoke to a memorable sunrise.


We passed an island in the far distance, which held a Moslem village. (Most of Indonesia, except Bali, is predominantly Moslem.) I racked the lens of my Lumix ZS200 out as far as it could go (360 mm), applied "Intelligent Zoom" to double that, and substantially cropped the resulting JPEG to achieve the image that you see above. It looks like an Impressionist watercolor, which I put up as an object lesson in pushing imaging technology too far.



The sails of the Pan Orama II were raised (one of only two times on this voyage) and made an interesting (to me) composition with the mast partly blocking the sun.


The stern of the ship, with Greek flag flying and paddle-boards, scuba gear, and life preservers readied for a wet landing on Badil Island.


A larger island on the way to Badil, showing the eroded remnants of volcanic activity that formed the Indonesian island chain.





By mid-afternoon we had gone ashore on Badil, and those who wanted to paddle, swim, or scuba were enjoying themselves. I, on the other hand, am unenthusiastic about water sports, so I contented myself with taking pictures of the vegetation.




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