July/August 2018 passagemaker.com 37was more like slightly rotten fruit, and the custardy pulp inside
tasted vaguely of boiled sweet onions.
In February, March, and well into April the winds laid low,
variable and light. From Banda onward we levitated over an ocean
of polished silver, a mirror for the clouds towering over islands
ahead. This was a volcano alley—distant black mounds on the
horizon slowly rose into smoking pyramids. The calm weather
helped, and we often anchored in water over 100 feet deep on
slopes from reefs fringing the volcanoes. At Manuk Island we
plunged into water swarming with sea snakes. Deadly venomous
but with mouths too small to bite, the curious snakes would nose
our wet suits and swing away. I’m not sure how much they liked
living in the sea because they often climbed our anchor chain to
curl up on the warm foredeck. Hundreds of boobies and frigate
birds circled overhead. These were a unique sight as traditional
egging has wiped out most colonies on the inhabited islands.
Volcanoes in this part of Indonesia can erupt any time.
Gunung Api, hovering over our anchorage, has killed people, the
last time in 1988. Pulau Serua, a night stop on our route, smoked
heavily. Green vegetation has reclaimed Pulau Nila’s peak but
earthquakes often rattle this place. Pulau Damar puffed smoke
from sulfur-rimmed ulcers that pockmarked a bare hillside. In
the anchorage, a fisherman in his canoe, his village ghostly in
the yellow volcanic haze, sold us a tuna-like fish, striped as a
rainbow. He prepared to fish all night in the glare of our lights.
He rigged his line with a round stone from a heap at his feet,
wrapped around it the flank of a fish containing a hidden hook,
and then camouflaged the whole lot with a large leaf. On anchor
watch at 2 a.m. (we kept night watches due to changing currents
and uncertain bottom), I saw him pull in the line and lean back
for a snooze, the canoe still empty.
Volcanoes thousands of feet high continued to dominate the
scenery as we swung more west. On larger islands numerous
villages attracted to the rich volcanic soils clung to smoking
slopes, existing with the ever-present threat of an eruption and
the monstrous waves that often follow. Our guide and translator,
Hengki Kolit, lives in Maumere on Flores Island, fortunately on
high ground across from the Rokatenda volcano. In 1992 the
earth shook, the sea heaved up 60 feet, and 2,500 people died.
Volcanoes also towered on the great island of Lembata, their
heads vanishing in clouds of ash. After reading Tim Severin’s In
Search of Moby Dick, I knew we just had to stop at Lamalera, a
village teetering on the edge of Lembata’s south shore. A row
of peaked thatched roofs on the crescent of the beach shaded
double-ended boats. Bamboo spars, harpoon shafts, and rolls of
woven-mat sails rested on the thwarts. The sail shape looked
as if it came from an engraving of an 18th-century expedition.
The last time I saw a similarly shaped hull was in the Nantucket
Whaling Museum—not surprising since Lamalera’s villagers live
off whaling, the sperm whale their preferred target. Venturing
offshore under sail, totally engineless, the men give slow chase
with oars. When close in, the harpooner balances on the bow
platform and flings himself, harpoon in his hands, into the sea to
add more power to the iron planted in the animal. Lamalerans