Labuhan, West Flores Island

Anchored off the Bajo-Komodo EcoLodge
Anchorage #26 in "101 Anchorages Within The Indonesian Archipelago" by Geoff Wilson

Labuhan
Palau Flores
East Nusa Tenggara
Indonesia
8'31.1S/119'52.1E

After a night of one too many Sundowners with S/V Uterus, we woke at sunrise at left the anchorage at Gili Bodo before anybody could identify us as the source of all the loud music from the previous night. Team Sandpiper had a nice motor sail past reefs and through several passes between small islands. We arrived at the town of Labuhan.

The west end of Flores Island is very nice. Very different than the east end. There are many small islands with white sand beaches and reefs that you can see through crystal clear water.

Sandpiper is anchored off the Bajo-Komodo Eco Lodge. They welcomes cruisers to use their facilities. We immediately helped ourselves to there self-service bar and swimming pool! The lodge has 12 rooms and was all built by hand. It took 2 years to build. We got to see pictures of how the lodge was built. Its quite impressive to see how a building is built in Indonesia without using any power tools.

The lodge gets people from all over the world who come here for the diving and to see the giant Komodo Dragons, which we are hoping to see tomorrow.

Team Sandpiper has been moving fast and furious, moving to new anchorages every day to keep ahead of the rally fleet. We are trying to stay ahead of the Rally fleet so we can get to these anchorages before they get crowded.

FOS update:

• SV Blue Sky and SV Sunburn left today and are heading west. Sunburn got their transmission fixed and are hoping the welds hold together.
• SV Uterus is anchored right next to us.
• SV Shiraz has sailed ahead and we will probably not see them again until we get Thailand. They are sailing fast so that they can fly home to the U.S. in November.

Team Sandpiper's current plans are to wake up early to get a ride into town to stock up on fresh vegetables at the local market. Then we will head out for an anchorage where we are hoping to see lots of Komodo Dragons!

More soon,
Tom and Amy