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| Tiger Blue Maiden Voyage! |
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17 Apr 2008 (871 days ago)
April 6th 2008
We flew into Makassar from Jakarta on the Friday night and left by van on Saturday morning on the 4.5 hour drive to Bira. It was a great drive with so much to see. The rice fields were all ready to harvest and we went past absolutely idyllic scenes of villagers cutting, threshing and winnowing the rice. There were lots of buffalos at work and plenty of the jaunty horses common in Sulawesi, being used to carry baskets and people across the fields.
Driving past the sea salt pans we managed to stop and purchase 2 4 kilo bags of lovely organic Makassar sea salt, as well as the fantastic baskets woven by the women under their houses. I stopped a woman with 2 of these baskets. she had just rinsed the salt from them and they were drying in the sun. there was much giggling when I asked to buy them but we struck a deal (and I have them now proudly displayed at home.)
The baskets were used to carry the salt harvest, but all the way along the road we saw women weaving baskets of different sizes, all to be used straight away in their daily chores during the rice harvest. They are true works of art and looking into the base of them, gives the lovely surprise of seeing the stems of 3 perfectly cut and intertwined palm leaves. These palms produce not only dark nuttly flavoured palm sugar but also the potent alcoholic 'toddy', also sold on stalls along the road.
As we drove right along the coastline we spotted the ingenious seaweed growing 'fields'. As you speed along in your car or van in this area, feel free to toss your plastic water bottles out the window!. They are collected up and used as floats for the lines and lines of seaweed that float just off the beach. This is a great form of recycling and these seaweed projects should really be hailed as fantastic sustainable little industries. The people here have managed to make money using very little- thousands and thousands of discarded water bottles, fishing line and the starter pieces of seaweed which are wound onto the line. This all floats just off shore in straight lines and we just saw,literally fields of floating bottles. The seaweed collected, dried and sent off to be used in the food and cosmetic industries. It has helped fishermen boost their incomes but also has had an effect on the local fish stocks. Fishermen earn more growing seaweed so no longer use often damaging methods of fishing, and the seaweed fields provide sanctuary for fish fry to grow.
As we drove into bira, along the cilff, we spotted Tiger Blues masts. They looked huge! As we rounder the corner we caught our first glimpse of her anchored peacefully off Bira beach. David had sailed on her when he joined Wouter and the crew(and carpenters, plumbers and electricians) during her first sea trail about a 6 weeks ago but for the rest of us, it was really exciting. she looked lovely and big!
We drove straight down to the beach where we were met by Tuang and the tender. On board the kids immediatle put on their snorkels and spent the next 4 and half hours until sunset, in the water inspecting the reef. It was a great end to the day. The plan was to sail her to Makassar harbour the next day where all the final finishing and fit out would take place. |
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