Ambon. This place was huge!! A big change from the little islands we had seen so far. Ambon is a major city with the craziest roads and lifestyles. As we sailed in, Loz and I took one look at it from the boat and made a 'disgusting' face. It was clear instantly that it would not be like the tiny magical places we had visited thus far. In the end, Ambon was not so bad and we did have a blast. We spent the first day there enjoying our time by relaxing at a cafe/pub on the dock... We didn't make it very far from the boat, but it turned into an adventure nonetheless. Loz and I 
ended up dancing at the pub in front of a bunch of local kids who laughed and laughed at the strange white woman. They were swimming in the water below
us at the end of the pier, where the pub was. From there we watched another beautiful sunset and then went to our friend's boat 'Astra' for a lovely meal. Loz had made the acquaintance of a lovely local police man while we were drinking, and he too came by the boat for dinner. It was a laugh, but the skipper of that boat pretended to use his Captain status to marry them. Then Loz's new husband pulled out his gun to show everyone. I am not kidding, he had a pistol!! We were all a bit shocked and didn't know what to think, the party was over! We kindly said good-night to him and Loz did her best to explain to him (he did not speak English) that she was getting a divorce. Once he was off board, our party picked back up and we all went back to enjoying our evening.The next day we went into the city for supplies. What a scary trip that was! You should see how these Indonesians drive. It is crazy! The streets are so crowded with anything from vendors to cows in the middle of the city. The streets are not straight, and certainly have no lines painted on them. There is an understanding of which way the traffic SHOULD flow, but often people just go around whoever, where ever, whenever. I had my first ride on an 'Ojak' here. An ojak is a motorbike and is usually the cheapest and fastest way to get around in stead of a taxi if you are traveling alone. My ojak ride was, of course, an experience in of itself. He weaved in and out of traffic, at least a couple of times I thought we were going to hit something or get hit. But it was never the case. Their driving is scary, but also a bit of an art form. It is not uncommon to see motorbikes here with full families on them! I'm not even kidding, a dad, mom, big sister, little sister and 6 month old baby... all on just 1 motorbike! I don't know how they keep their balance. It was definitely an experience one can only have here in the third world.
That evening the Indonesian government put on a Gala Dinner for us. This was fantastic! Three tables of beautifully cooked local food. All you can eat buffet, and
did we eat. They also had programmed into the night speeches by their Minister of Marine Fisheries who thanked us all for coming to their island in the hopes of generating more tourism to this side of Indonesia which does not often get a lot. Unknowingly, during the speeches I sat next to this Indonesian man who was in full local dress up. He taught me some Indonesian while we shared laughs together over how long the speeches were. He was good company. It was only after the speeches when I got up and returned to my friends that I was informed as to who he was. Apparently we (The Sail Indonesia Rally) is such a big deal, they had sent there Second Vice President to oversee this Gala Dinner. Yes, that's right, I had been sitting with the third highest government official of all of Indonesia! A very, very, very 
important man. Who knew? I didn't. Well the night consisted of a lot more than just food and speeches. There were these excellent native dances performed for us, my favorite was a fisherman dance. These guys came out with fancy fishing nets and did the most brilliant and graceful movements with them in their dance steps. It was very cool indeed. A local children's band also came and played for us. 
They too were A-mazing! There was this really interesting instrument there that one of the boys played and he totally kicked butt on, he had many solos! It was called a Gamelan. It is a line of tin blows with tops on them like pyramids. Each bowl played a different note and it made the most incredible sounds. The best part was, he played it with the biggest smile on his face that you have ever seen! He was definitely having a blast. The whole band was awesome, if you only just heard them you wouldn't believe that they were a children's band at all! Afterwards, a bunch of us each got on the back of an ojak and we raced to the city. We had a glorious night out at a karaoke pub, followed by a dance club. Then all 10 of us caught ojak's back to the harbor as we were departing the next day. I remained sailing with Lachie and Loz on Felicity and we embarked on a 4 day sail up to the island of Sulawesi.
We started the sail as a day sail and we anchored the first night around the corner at this nice little top spot. We watched an amazing sunset and got an early nights sleep for the long sail we had in front of us. This was a long four days in which patience was tested on a small 30 ft. yacht. During this sail, we also crossed the equator! This is a right of passage for any sailor and is always celebrated. However, you would rather be a Shelback then a Polywog during the celebration. Sailor's who have never sailed across it before are called 'Polywogs' and sailor's who have sailed across before are called "Shelbacks'. Well both Lachie and I are Shelbacks as I crossed the equator during my trip across the Pacific in 2005. Only Loz was not. 
So the morning we crossed it "King Neptune" visited our boat and as his 
minion I made her a delicious cocktail comprising of rum, beer, milk, and soy sauce! Yikes! It took her about 3 seconds before puking over the side of the boat! Haha, now she is a Shelback! In the end, we got to Bitung on Sulawesi and a huge setup was waiting for us, full of festivities for us for the week.The Indonesians are really treating us participants of the Sail Indonesia Rally like royalty. They want us to have a good time and enjoy their country so that we will encourage other westerners to come here to these less visited islands. We anchored in the harbor of Bitung, next to the major city of Manado. There have been many programs put in place for the 2 weeks we were to spend on land here. First we had an opening ceremony, complete with dancing and speeches. Followed by another Gala Dinner that night, complete with dancing and speeches (are we seeing a pattern yet?). The next day they organized buses to take us to Tangkoko National Park. We spent the morning hiking through here, viewing the many monkey's. Mostly they were all black with red
butts and were not scared of us at all. Often letting us approach them to within 15 
ft. We also saw the smallest monkey in the world there. It is called the Tarsius monkey. Its eyes are so large that it can not move them. To make up for this their heads rotate a full 360 degrees around! They are tiny little guys hiding in trees and they only come out at night. After the hiking we were so hot and sweaty that our guide took us to a wonderfully secluded 
beach on the side of the park. It was gorgeous. We returned to the boats and in the afternoon took our dingies to a beautiful location around the corner where we spent the afternoon snorkeling. I saw fish there I have never seen before. Tons of huge blue starfish. And very colorful and bright coral heads. My underwater camera definitely got a work out there!Another highlight of the events they had setup for us here was breaking a Guinness Book of World Records, which I , of course, took part in! The record broken was the number of scuba divers to enter the water and descend to the bottom at once. We had to provide our own equipment, which I do not have. So I went with my friend Jason from the boat Monkey's Business. He and his wife are from Denver and she was ill that day and could not go, so I got to borrow her equipment. It was an awesome experience! There were many speakers on shore and an announcer of course. As each group of divers entered the water he would say
"Diver's are you OK?" and everyone would shout back "OK!". This would go on at least three times before the next group of divers entered the water. There were also so many spectators shouting it back each time from shore, if someone had not been okay, you would have never known it. The streets were covered with street vendors, it was like being at a fair. And an Italian representative from the Guinness Book was there to watch the event. All together there were 2,800 divers who all
went down to 12 meters for 30 minutes together. Once on the bottom there was not much to see. Most of the divers were Indonesian Navy divers. All though, they had a "VIP" section setup for us yachties. This section was the closest to the front, where some coral was. But mostly the rest of the bottom was sandy silt. So you could not move around much there as visibility would be destroyed. I have never seen anything like it before ever! On the bottom they had lines tied up in a grid system showing everyone where they were to sit and keep still. There were so many divers down there it was incredible. While on the bottom I played paddy-cake with one of my new friends from the rally, a 16 year old named Austin. We also practiced 
blowing bubbles in different shapes and stared at some little fish passing us by. There were so many of us doing goofy things that we all suffered from our masks constantly filling up with water as we were laughing non-stop. And that's not even the half of it. They also had underwater speakers setup playing marching tunes for us to enjoy the whole time! When 30 minutes was up, they let us know and we ascended together. As if the process of getting in the water and being on the bottom wasn't enough of a sight, the sight on top of the water after ascending was even more impressive!! There were film crews everywhere and everyone was cheering away and celebrating our feat. I was even interviewed as I came on shore and was on the Indonesian news that evening. When we rised up, everyone was shaking everyone else's 
hands and congratulating them. There was a very, very small percentage of us white folks, and they loved us white folks. In fact, I was one of the few girls who participated at all, which of course granted me more attention. This was not a good thing as it turned out. I was getting high fived from my left and right until I was pulled into the center of this navy mob of guys who all wanted a high five. They were pulling me left and right and I had no floatation device on. I almost started going under and had to shout at them in my best Indonesia to "Stop". Everyone was kicking furiously under the water to stay afloat and my flipper came off, this made me even more likely to get buried underneath a mob of guys in the ocean. Finally they all backed off a bit so I could regain my ability to float and a guy from their "Special Forces" went under to find my flipper. A big thanks to that guy! Nonetheless the spirit of the whole festivity was amazing and it was a brilliant day. You could not wipe the smiles off our faces at all! Afterward, a few of us went 
to enjoy a beautiful lunch at a western restaurant we found. Their cheeseburgers weren't exactly the same as ours, but it was a refreshing change from fried rice and noodles. The only bad thing of the day was that my underwater camera broke :( So I am sorry guys, but there will not be anymore underwater photos for a while as I have sent my camera off to Australia for repair.The next event setup for us was even bigger. It was dubbed "Sail Bunaken" and had been planned for 6 months. So what was it you ask? It was a sail past. What is a sail past exactly? Well it is exactly as it sounds. Many boats of all kinds sail past a certain point for all to see. This event
was so big that even the president of Indonesia was there. They had war ships, destroyers and Air Craft Carriers from American, Great Britain, Australia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Even the USS George Washington showed up for the event. After the war ships, they had 
local Indonesian fishing boats go through, followed finally by our sail boats. Unfortunately, and fortunately, our boat was not ready to participate in time as it was getting its' gear box fixed. So we were able to be ashore to watch the event. Lachie and I went together to the city of Manado for the day, where it was happening. We ended up getting to watch it from the same pavilion the President was watching it from. This meant we got to hear every ship announced and described to us. It also meant we got to hear the background music. Imagine this, you are on shore watching about 100 war ships coming at you while listening to none other than the theme from Star Wars! It was hilarious and intimidating all at once! There was a beautiful sunset with an island as the background as well. Such a site to see. Unfortunately, we had forgotten our camera's, ahhh!!!! So I am working on stealing a friend's photos and then will post them here as well. But it was an amazing event that I feel very blessed to have witnessed. That night our friends anchored their boats and came ashore. We had a 
massive feast and drank a lot of beer all sharing stories of the sail past, comparing from land and from sea what it looked like. This was the final and biggest event they had setup for us here. We have had an awesome time full of natural wonders, cultural events, great snorkeling and diving, finishing with an eye sight like I doubt I will even see again, the sail past! It has been an awesome time in Sulawesi! Did I mention the jets they had flying?Another interesting first for me here was this morning. I have had the unfortunate occurrence of drinking some bad water I think. And as a result I have had runny poo's of the acid yellow color for 3 days! So this new first involved going to an Indonesian hospital, something you want to avoid if you can. But my doctor's name was Theresa, and I took this as a good sign. She quickly examined me, I had a small fever and she prescribed me two types of tablets and a syrup. A few hours later I was felling loads better! The hospital was not bad like I thought it would be and in the end I am happy I went. Now I am all better for a nice sail out of here as soon as our gear box gets fixed! :) More pics have been uploaded to http://picasaweb.google.com/find.barlow/SailIndonesia2009#. Including a video of the boy playing a solo on the Gamelan.
