Alor Island
August 4, 2005 
Posted by Belle in : Alor, Indonesia
The sail to Alor was just over 24 hours. I gave Dio a quarter of a drammamine before we left and that seemed to be enough. I wore one of Wence’s new electric shock bands for sea sickness. No, I did not get sea sick, and it was a bit choppy the first couple of hours, but I still have marks from that thing. Guess I scorched my wrist. Theo did fine with the sail. He’s too little to notice anything different I think. He only notices if the people around him are not paying any attention to him. And he does not like that so much.
As we got closer to Alor we went through a beautiful channel with islands on either side. The islands look like the top of mountains you might find in Colorado, green but a bit dry. We saw a few villages here and there, but it is really not very developed. We anchored with the rest of the rally boats outside of Kalabhi.
The locals drive around in home made wooden boats that sound like they’re using lawn mower engines. They’re very narrow and so loud. Most of the locals are very friendly. They say “Hello Missus, Hello Mister!” I stayed on board the first night. Theo goes to sleep around 6ish and I have not had an abundant supply of milk so don’t feel great about leaving him unless I have a little extra. That night at 4AM the mosque came alive and tha moaning muslim chanting blasted over loudspeakers all through the town. WOW. It was so strange. Half asleep, waking up to that, wondering where the hell you are and who is moaning at you and what the hell they are saying. Somehow we managed to fall back asleep until Dio’s new waking hour. 6AM. The sun is up by then here, so I do no mind. It was the 5AM still pitch dark mornings in Auckland that I never should have let happen. Just when I think Dio cannot be happier on the boat, he just seems to explode with enthusiasm. He is so alive and so loving this adventure. He plays for a bit in the pool Sophia gave him for his birthday every morning and evening. He orders us to get in the nennee (dinghy) after breakfast so he can be sure to see some fish and do something fun. We have to force him to take his nap because he just does not want to stop. When he and Wence go off and so something while I a feeding the baby, he comes back and tells me all about it, all happy an excited. Being his mom is so fun!
Today they had a big Expo near the dinghy landing. I met Wence for lunch while they were still preparing for it. Later I was too tired to go so the baby and I spent a nice quiet afternoon on board while everyone else went ashore to watch the show. I have an eye infection and have not been taking care of it as well as I should, so it has not gotten better. I decided to take some time and just keep putting warm compresses on it all afternoon in the hopes that it will start to get better tomorrow. It’s great to be able to call the medlink doctors, send them pictures even of my eye and get advice from them on what to do. They put me on an antibiotic eye drop that seems to be working very slowly.
When dio, Wence, Liz, David, and Ricardo got back I could hear from Dio’s voice that he had a great time. Apparently he was the star of the Expo. Dozens of kids chased him around, all wanting to pinch him and carry him around. He usually doesn’t mind, but if they are too aggressive he pushes them away and make his most serious frown. Wence is great at letting him get tossed from person to person. I get a little nervous sometimes and usually retrieve Dio at the first available opportunity. But dio is getting used to it now and of course loves the attention. He is a big hit in Indonesia. They cannot believe he is a boy.. Wence told me an old lady even did a visual check to make sure, not believing wence that he truly was a laki laki. Wence and I went back to the same restaurant for dinner. Turns out there really isn’t any other restaurant except in the hotel where all the boaters are staying. We kind of like to avoid staying with the herd the whole time. When we were in the restaurant locals would just come sit at our table and talk to us. They wanted to practice their English and hear what we thought of their home. Indonesians seem to be very forward in some ways.