Palau Sipora , Mentawai islands, West Sumatra ( 6th May to 8th May 2016)

After an overnight voyage on the 6th of May, we arrived at Sipora Island (Siburu) which is part of the Mentawai Island chain of West Sumatra. There are some lovely quiet resorts here aimed at the surfers who come for the great swells brought in from the southern Indian ocean. We were boarded by friendly coastguard offficials while we were underway and they checked our cruising permit and visa's.

 We continued to a small island and stayed in a lovely protected anchorage with our friends on SV Leto while making final preparations for the long voyage to Chagos.

John and Ainsley have a most appealing resort here. They have put many hours of hard work and artistic flare into creating this unique hideaway. We enjoyed "Happy hour" drinks one evening with some surfers off a launch and a very nice smorgasboard lunch the next day, entertained by their pet monkey.

CRUISERS NOTES

Siburu: (Sipora) We anchored off the Aloita resort jetty.

The holding did not feel good and there was a strong tidal flow. The resort management was very friendly and suggested re anchoring just on the south eastern end of the island in a semi bay. It was only a short distance back. We tried to re anchor and did manage to find a good sandy patch in around 6m but the Leto's who were traveling with us immediately hooked on a bombie. There was not really enough room on our patch for two boats so we followed them on to the Hawaiian resort. Half way there we were stopped by the navy in a long canoe style outboard powered boat all in camo! The uniformed officer that came aboard was courteous and had good English. He asked why we had not checked in at Topejat? We told him that we had cleared in Padang and after a sleep at the resort we would be heading for Chagos. The sleep over was fine. But he still wanted the usual copies of our CAIT, crew list and ships papers even though it was irrelevant and out of date!

So you never know. Keep some even after you’ve cleared. We assume it qualifies their job. Just the same as back home! They took photos of Leto but didn’t board.

Hawaiian resort : The resort is on the small west island on the western end. The anchorage is to the eastern end of this island. We anchored off the white sand beach at the eastern end. The holding is good in sand. We then reconnoitered by dinghy a snugger anchorage and moved to 02' 07.6415 S 99' 31.613 E

The bottom is sand in 6 m. The resort is very easy to access. They are nice folk and the chill out lay back and very interesting main building is a great place to mentally prepare one self for the next passage. They do good meals, sell beer , have a slow wifi and cute monkey.

We were approached by young fisher men in dugouts that offered drinking coconuts and octopus. One man showed me his very worn out single flipper. At least he didn’t ask for money! Leto's were approached by two aggressive men in a dugout with the usual hand written form with a stamp on it demanding anchorage fees. Peter said no!

From here we began our passage to Chagos.