Adventures in The Anambas
THE SHORT VERSION
After 2 weeks in the UK, we reunited with Pure Joy in Southeast Asia, this time in Indonesia.
Two crew members joined us for this trip:
Gary, our co-skipper for this first big adventure
Zena, our dear friend and hopeful crew member for many future Pure Joy adventures
We sailed around the Anambas Islands for 10 days. Never heard of it? Yeah, most people haven’t and neither had we until a few weeks ago! In a few words…
REMOTE. (As in, we saw 3 other pleasure boats during this whole trip. We were the only humans on most islands we visited.)
GORGEOUS. Crystal clear turquoise water, soft sandy beaches.
VARIED. Every island was different – the sand, the coral, the foliage, the bird noises, the current.
We learned a LOT and we are excited for more
THE FULL STORY
In the weeks leading up to this little summer holiday, friends would ask: ‘So, where are you off to next?’ I’d answer with ‘The Anambas Islands,’ which would be met with a head scratch, so I’d add, ‘It’s an archipelago in Indonesia.’ It didn’t strike me as odd that folks from the UK or US hadn’t heard of it, because until only a few weeks earlier, I hadn’t either. It struck me as fun that we were ‘discovering’ someplace a bit off the beaten track, at least to us Westerners.
Cut to Singapore, where we spent a couple days before going on our adventure. (I was keen to show Elliot the pool at the Marina Bay Sands, the Art & Science Museum, Gardens by the Bay and we even squeezed in a visit to the Night Safari Zoo – all highly recommended, by the way!)
As we made our rounds, the question about how long we were there and where we would go next would come up with Singapore locals – the hotel concierge, my dear friend Anni, a taxi driver – and to my surprise (and increasing apprehension) the conversation would play out the exact same way. ‘Huh. I’ve never heard of it.’
I turned to David, ’Okay….where did this idea come from? WHERE exactly are we going?!’ David reassured me that it was a solid recco from a friend, that it was quite remote and beautiful. I reminded myself that several previous google searches had confirmed all of this, so…onward!
Before heading off to explore these remote islands, we first needed to reunite with Pure Joy. While we had been in the UK for the last 2 weeks, a delivery crew had sailed her from Pattaya, Thailand to Nongsa Point Marina in Batam, Indonesia. (Not without a few significant scratches, bumps and bruises to our beautiful new boat 😭! Ahem, we’ve parted ways with this crew.) On the 1-hour ferry ride from Singapore to Batam, we found ourselves impressed by the size and might of the shipping vessels…with little idea of how our respect for these beasts would grow in the coming days.
After disembarking the ferry, we hopped in a taxi. I asked Elliot what he noticed was different about the view out of these taxi windows versus what we saw in Singapore. FYI - the buildings are MUCH smaller, the dirt is red and the signs have a different language on them.
45 minutes later we arrived and were walking down the dock toward our girl. It struck me how she was just starting to feel like home. Greeting us on Pure Joy were a couple of very important characters in the Anambas Adventures.
Gary – Our co-skipper for this trip. Pure Joy is a big boat and we’ve not had a lot of practice with her yet. We decided that bringing someone on board to help us get to know the boat better and to navigate local waters would make for a MUCH more relaxing sailing holiday. We found Gary on the interwebs a few weeks prior and after a zoom call it was clear that we’d be hard pressed to find someone with better experience. What we didn’t know was that his sailing and travel stories would keep us laughing and eyes-wide for the next couple of weeks as well.
Zena – We first met just over 11 years ago when Zena was our wedding celebrant. We were so blown away by her (as a person, not to mention as a celebrant!) that after the wedding, we set out to become dear friends with her. Lucky us, she was up for it too. About a year ago, over a cozy pub dinner in London, we floated the idea with Zena of joining us for some sailing adventures. We were delighted and unsurprised (Zena is the definition of ‘live life to the fullest’ kinda person) with her enthusiastic response. As Zena’s sailing experience was limited, and because we’ve never spent extended periods of time together in a small space (!), we all thought a trial run this summer would be fun and a good idea. Spoiler alert: the experiment was wildly successful.
PREPARATIONS
Finally aboard, it was time to get ourselves and the boat ready for adventure. In a quick team meeting, we decided to divide and conquer. David, Gary and Elliot stayed aboard to unpack, get organized and sort out last-minute boat tasks and admin. Zena and I headed off on a provisioning run.
To be specific, this would be the FIRST time either of us had provisioned a boat for an extended trip. But how hard could it be? We had gathered a few recipes between all of us and scribbled a list of ingredients for those and of course other staples. Gary had secured some recommendations of some local stores – one for food and one for booze. (Indonesia is a Muslim country so very few stores are licensed to sell alcohol.) It was a 45-minute Grab (South East Asia’s Uber equivalent) to the grocery store. It was no bigger than a 7-11, but somehow seemed to have EVERYTHING. We started filling our carts with all the things, all while contending with competing questions:
Where on earth are we going to PUT all this stuff on the boat? (Especially things that need to keep cool – we have a mini fridge and cooler-sized fridge.)
How long will this keep?
Is this enough for 5 people for 10 days? Too much?
We made our best guesses, checked out, filled our bags and loaded them into our Grab in the POURING rain. We made a quick stop at the alcohol store, again making wild guesses about how much we wanted for 10 days and headed back to the marina.
After loading all the goods on the boat, Zena and I started unpacking and finding homes for everything. Simultaneously, we moved onto the fuel dock and filled up. As we pulled away from Batam, a marching band played in front of the marina hotel as they practiced for National Day festivities which would take place in 2 days’ time. It felt like an appropriate send-off for our first big adventure!
THE JOURNEY TO ADVENTURE (An adventure in of itself)
We sailed 160 miles over 24 hours before reaching the Anambas Islands. This was my longest passage to date and first overnight passage. We had shifts allocated to two teams (Gary & Zena / David & Joy) but I think we were all so excited that we mostly all stayed up for the majority of the trip. Well, there was a lot of snoozing on the sofa going on for me – my body’s natural cure when the waves are getting to me.
The passage was made extra interesting because for a large portion of it, we had to navigate our way amongst the MASSIVE shipping vessels in the Singapore shipping lanes. The radar/AIS screen, glowing with indications of the ships all around us and our need to dodge them, reminded us all of an advanced level in Frogger. (An old-school video game for those too young to catch the reference.) Once, we were called out over the radio by one of our ginormous friends who was coming up from behind: PURE JOY PURE JOY. INDICATE YOUR INTENTIONS. We made sure to get out of the way.
THE ADVENTURE
The most striking thing about pulling into our first anchorage was that we were the only ones there. In this bay, we were surrounded by hills and valleys and gorgeous palm trees and other foliage. Below us was water so clear you could see the sand at the bottom. And we had to share this magic with precisely no one.
As soon as we could, we all hopped into Happy (our dingy) and circumnavigated the island. Gary zipped us around with dramatic turns and jumps over waves – bringing smiles, laughter and whoops from us all, especially Elliot. We got our first proper understanding of what the week ahead would hold for us. Dramatic cliffs with huge boulders impossibly perched on top of one another. Water so clear you could see fish swimming through the coral below. Beaches without a footprint to be found.
Rather than try to share a full play-by-play of our explorations over the following 10 days, I’ll just share with you the highlights I never want to forget…
Laying face-down on the nets with Elliot as we gently sailed along. ‘I could do this all day, Mum.’
Getting to know our boat. Getting comfortable with how she operates. Falling in love with how she performs. (Whilst dealing with all the normal boating challenges, mind you!)
One head of lettuce is not enough for 5 adults for 10 days.
The sheer relief (from the heat) and joy we felt each time we jumped off the back of the boat into the crystal clear water. This evolved to jumping off the side and ultimately the front of the boat, us matching Elliot’s growing courage each time.
Watching Elliot transform into a fish. Not keen on using a snorkel yet, whenever we went snorkeling, he would pop on just his goggles and swim with us, diving down to look at fish and coral more closely, surfacing to yell, ‘Dad! Did you see that?!’ or ‘Zena, come look at this coral, right below me!’ When asked what he thought of his first ‘dive’, he said ‘That was ASTONISHING. I’m going to draw a picture when I get back.’ (See photos.) Occasionally he’d climb on one of our backs for a rest, but for he most part, Elliot had to be convinced to get back on the dingy when a snorkeling session was coming to a close. (Well done to Sonia for insisting on Swim lessons for the last 5 years!)
Visiting a tiny Indonesian fishing village. All the local children flocked to us as we dingy-ed through the village and greeted us with smiles and waves as we tied Happy off and climbed onto the rickety dock. We were there for about an hour, buying apples, potatoes, eggs and the few other precious food top-ups we could find and slurping Indonesian noodles for lunch. In that time, Elliot became fast friends with about 20 local kids. They ran and played games with no discernable outcome except laughter. As we left to get back on the boat, Elliot shared that he wished he could bring one of them back with us so he’d have another kid to play with on the boat. 😭 Since that visit, Elliot has grown even more confidence in approaching other children and asking them to play, no matter where we are. It’s beautiful to watch and at the same time, a reminder we will need to go out of our way to make sure he has opportunities to interact with other kids on our world travels. (Visitors welcome!)
Stumbling on THE most idyllic uninhabited island, only to find that it WAS inhabited. 5 years ago, Anjte and her two daughters moved onto Palau Sama and have been slowly building it into an eco-tourism retreat. They have one INCREDIBLE room so far. You need to scale up a MASSIVE boulder to get there, but the view is more than worth it. Check out @ecosymbiosis the next time you are contemplating leaving the world behind to go find yourself.
Watching Elliot’s imagination and ability to cook up his own joy and entertainment thrive… in complete absence of his iPad. Just before we set sail, Elliot chose a 1-week break from his iPad as the consequence to a little incident (which I know he’d be embarrassed if I shared). I was not looking forward to enforcing this and if I’m honest, questioned my ability to do so. It went so well though, that 7 days iPad-free stretched through to the entire sailing trip. All of us benefited from more conversation, more questions, more creativity and daydreaming on Elliot’s behalf. I won’t make any promises or predictions about hard-and-fast rules re: devices while at sea, but the experience has for sure got me thinking a lot about digital detoxing in general.
Getting to know an old friend (Zena) even better and a new friend (Gary) for the first time. Lots of time on a boat means lots of storytelling, and I’m here for it.
Finding a quiet moment with David on our watch shift from 12-3am on our way back to Batam. My seasickness had subsided after our 9pm-12am nap, and we had fun playing Frogger with the ships around us. A new kind of date night for us.
Pure Joy feeling SO teeeeeeeny tiny and inconsequential in the shadow of the mammoth shipping freighters, then feeling absolutely GINORMOUS as we attempted to dock the boat in our marina slip. 🤣
We’re back in Singapore now. Last night we had friends over for dinner on the boat for the first time. I hadn’t thought about how that first time you have friends over to your new place is when it really starts to feel like home. It turns out this holds true for a boat as much as a house or flat. A chance to chat it up with Tawana (a true legend and friend from my Facebook days) and her husband Blaine about all things adventure, travel, kids, business and life was such a treat. To do it in OUR new home, in THEIR city…pretty dang special.
This morning we made pancakes and did laundry. As I’m writing this, David and Elliot are building Lego. I keep taking breaks to take in this incredibly normal and gorgeous scene, in this completely different setting, and it really hits home. No matter where this beautiful boat takes us and the spectacular things we see along the way, it’s the little moments that will take my breath away the most.
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P.S. The most common question we get is, ‘So, where next?’. The answer is… it’s a bit complicated. Have a look here at The Plan (as it stands now).
P.P.S. If the spirit moves you, leave us a comment to let us know you’ve been here! Bonus points for tips on seasickness and/or provisioning - we’re in learning mode!
