Surprise Detour to THIS Unbelievable Sea Cave | Sailing Southeast Asia- S5 Ep 126

Surprise Detour to THIS Unbelievable Sea Cave | Sailing Southeast Asia- S5 Ep 126

[Music] We had been anchored here in this unexpected piece of paradise at Sorean Solowise for over a week, but the time was fast approaching to continue north. And on the way, Karen had a brain wave for a very unusual camera shoot. Ride along and have a look. We’re an Australian couple, Rob and Karen, who worked out before it was too late that life is for living. So, we’re off sailing to catch our dream time, exploring as many of Indonesia’s 17,000 islands as we can. Next on our list is Sulawa, the world’s 11th largest island, remote and far from the usual sailing routes. Its coastline boasts golden sand beaches and hundreds of offshore islands for us to discover along with many, many diverse cultural groups. Come along on our journey as we make the most of every single day in series 5, Dream Time. Suloazi, [Music] smile, smile, smile, smile. Swim time. After a while, I’m sensing a smile. After a while, I’m sensing a smile. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Good morning crew from our idealic location. We haven’t moved. Are we ever going to move, Rob? Well, we will eventually. Looks like I’ve got no clothing on. Oh, there you go. I do have clothing on. It is Saturday morning here at Palao Coco. Yes, we are still here. We’ve had a couple of reasons for staying put. The first one is we are heading uh about 200 sorry we are heading about 140 odd miles north to the Bangi Islands and the wind has been blowing from the north consistently ever since we arrived here. That always happens, doesn’t it? So we’ve just been waiting for a weather window. Yes. Um and the other little factor is that our friends on our buddy boat were feeling not well. not well at all. It um it appears they may have even picked up CO. Um but they have isolated on their boat for over a week now. We haven’t been near them. We’ve had no symptoms, so we’re quite confident that we missed it. And uh fingers crossed. Um they’re feeling fine now. Uh the way the weather forecast is, we think we’re going to move on Monday. just a 22 odd mile hop up to another island and then on Tuesday or Wednesday we’ll do the 120 mile overnight passage across to the Bangi Isles. Yep. Looking forward to the Bangi Isles. Again, it’s not an area that is well known on the tourist trail. So, we’ve had a little bit of issue trying to find details, but I’m sure we’ll find more when we get there anyway. Oh, some of the things we’ve seen that uh are available for us to go and explore. look absolutely incredible. They do. So, if that is just the entree, I am sure there is lots lots and lots more that we will be able to see. Well, this place we found almost by accident and it is absolutely stunning. It is. I mean, you could just stay here for months and just go around all the little islands, check them all out. There’s stunning beaches like the one we’re standing on and crystal clear waters, lovely reef. What more could you want? Oh, it’s um it’s absolutely gorgeous. We’ve been loving it here. Uh our dream time is uh mored over behind us. I think you might be able to see it there somewhere. Yep. And um she’s nice and secure. We um got very low on fresh provisions, but there’s a little local resort in there um which have been very very helpful to us. And we’ve just organized a bit of a shopping list for them. And they’ve sent off a boat to market and they’re going to pick it all up for us and Lola be Yeah. some eggs and some fruit and hopefully maybe even some chicken and some squid. Yeah. Rob’s looking forward to some extra protein. Be nice. He doesn’t want to have chickpea um curry for the rest of his life. He said so. It has been nice uh here. The mornings are normally beautiful and clear like it is at the moment. We come for a swim in this unbelievably crystal clear water. Try a new beach every morning. And then we’ve been buckling down and getting some boat jobs done in the afternoon. Yes. So, um it’s been a productive stay. It hasn’t been wasting our time. And I mean, if you’re going to pull up anywhere and just stop for a while, this is the place to do it. Wow. I mean, you you have to go below to actually do the boat jobs. can’t sit above because you are totally finled. The view just takes your eyes every minute. Well, pause. Finled. Finled is an old English word we discovered which means distracted from the major task at hand. In other words, it’s like being squirreled. But it’s a word that we discovered um old English word and uh we use it quite often. We use it quite a lot because we are the victims of being finled a lot. We are. Yeah. But yes, you know, the view just takes your eyes and you just get nothing done. So, and it’s beautiful. It’s gorgeous. I’m going to do another spin round for you. Yeah. So, you can have a look at it as well. These rocks alone are just stunning. They’ve got their own little gardens in them. I’m fascinated how all these beautiful little plants just survive in them. And all of these are just separate little islands with lagoons in between. Beautiful white sand beaches, clear water. It is paradise. That’s the mainland of Sulowi over in the distance. And over there, not quite so paradise. That’s a Chineseowned and operated nickel mine. There’s Tiny 2, our tender. And I’m sinking in the sand here. It’s so white and soft. And as Karen says, the vegetation on the island is absolutely stunning. And I am going to go into the water. Ankle deep is just here. Rob stronghold. I’m now the cove hanger apparently. So, that’s us, guys. Um, we, as I say, we uh plan to move on Monday at the moment if the weather doesn’t change. If it does, we’ll let you know. Yeah, the sand’s so soft here. We’re just absolutely sinking in it. It’s glorious. The beach is only a beach at low tide cuz uh the high tide comes right up to the rocks. There’s our dream time. Happily sitting at anchor. We have been here for over a week now. We’re so pleased that we’ve actually discovered this gorgeous place and got to experience it while it is still pristine paradise. message to you. If you’re ever considering coming up and experiencing these remote areas, do it and do it soon while they’re still beautiful. Today’s been a huge day on our dream time. It’s been all about self-sufficiency. And today, Rob’s been making water. He’s been checking oils. He’s been making sure everything is all good. And I’ve been in the galley making bread, making banana bread, um preserving, making yogurt, making cheap pudding and pizza. And we are down to our last fresh supplies. So, we have no cheese. No cheese whatsoever left on board. And that means pizza could be really quite dismal. But we have pizza anyway. And our pizza has nasamin curry base with chickpea which is obviously hummus that I’ve made. Um canned chicken and then freshmade yogurt with all the herbs and spices to make it that little bit sweet and spicy. What do you reckon it tastes like, Rob? And I can guarantee it’s good. It’s good. Well, we’re already halfway through one. And the beers aren’t going down bad either. Pizza beers. That’s what it’s all about. That’s my beer. Well, where’s mine, mate? Well, good morning everyone. We just can’t tear ourselves away from this beautiful place. We have been lazing around for over a week now. Yeah. Yeah, we might move. Why should we when you have beautiful beaches, lovely reef, pristine water? It’s just so calming here. It is beautiful. These are things you need to get used to when you come to Indonesia, especially for your fresh produce. You don’t get it all packaged. This is how our chicken comes. And we’re lucky this time it hasn’t got feathers. We also got some squid. Have a look at the size of these squid. That is huge. It’s massive. So, what are you going to do with that one? Well, I think I’m going to keep him whole and I’ll stuff him. I’ll keep him whole and um stuff him with some rice and whatever. Whatever. And we’ll barbecue him. I reckon that’ll be good. These are the clean jobs. Notice Rob’s not doing this. He didn’t cut the chicken up either. Yeah, but Rob was in the engine room yesterday with all of the crap in there. So, this is what we’ve been waking up to each morning. This morning though, it is a little overcast, but most mornings we have actually had blue blue sky, but even with the overcast, you can see how clear the waters are. [Music] Well, good morning everyone. We are finally leaving paradise. Are we happy about this? No. We have been here for what’s today? Today is Monday. So, yeah, 12 days. For Daniel and Emma when we were in Pandari, they picked up the co and have been isolated on their boat for 7 days. The last two days, they have been good. So, it’s time to move on. We’re so sorry for them. So so slow. Daniel actually asked Grim Roers if we can get in through the night because that hill. Anyway, we’re on our move and we’re going to somewhere called Umbell, I think it is. So 17.4 nautical miles. We just wanted to leave early enough so that we we had problem with the anchor. Um we had time to sort it out and we’re going into a reef area again. So we need plenty of light. It’s hazy and overcast today. Not so much overpass. It’s that pictorial cave. [Music] Almost on the move. And of course, the day we want to actually move is the day that we get a wet morning. Normally, there’ve been dry mornings and wet afternoons. Oh, no. Oh, well. [Music] While navigating through a narrow channel between islands, Karen hatched a cunning photographic plan involving Zooi, our drone, and the sea cave around the next point that we’d visited a few days ago. Our dream time, Tiny 2, just give us a big wave from the cockpit if you copy over. Roger that, received. [Music] Okay, so Rob and I are setting up drone shots and um well, video shoots. This is what you do when you’re YouTubers. You set up these silly shots that everyone loves. Hang on, I’m just turning the camera straight. So, I’m helming the boat real close to the reef and right in close to the cave opening so that Rob can get some shots of the boat turning in front. He’s now setting up the drone. So, he’ll give me instruction on what he wants to done with the drone in a moment. In the meantime, I’m going to to the boat. Be close enough set up for when he says come on in. Here [Music] we go. Coming in nice and close to the reef as you should be able to see the color change here. I’m going to run along the reef edge nice and close cuz it lines me up with the opening of the cave. It’s the most beautiful cave. really nice. It’s spectacular. It deserves great photos. Let’s hope we’re getting some today. Should be able to see the edge of the reefs there now. Very, very close to us. We’re still at 16 m. Just tip over here all the way through. [Music] was unable to talk to him on the radio at the moment because of course he’s got his hands in that road. So I am just winging it here and hopefully he is picking up some good news turning down [Music] above me. [Music] And of course, we don’t have walkies at the moment, which makes it very difficult. Rob’s giving me the thumbs up. And we’ve obviously got the shot that we want. You’ll see Rob over there in the cave. Give us a big wave, Rob. Okay. [Music] So now it’s just up to me to hang about out here while he packs up all the camera gear. Have these brilliant ideas and I make him go and do them. However, I have this big spatial issue. So getting that close to the reef and that close to those rock walls. [Music] So how’d that all go? Good. I think we had some fun because it didn’t want to pick up GPS inside the cave and didn’t want to go above 5 m off the ground and all that sort of thing. Follow forward outside and pick our GPS and fix the call. After our YouTube detour, we had a calm windless passage across to Umbell, just dodging nickel barges along the way. We’re just approaching what we’ve nicknamed Dynamite Lagoon uh to anchor for the night and maybe tomorrow night as well. And we’re just passing what looks to be a modern version of the chum boat. It’s all got its lights. It’s got its little power room for its generator and everything. The nets are in the middle, but nothing like the traditional chum boats we’ve seen all over Indonesia. But without doubt, that’s what it is. It’s for catching squid. It’s quite an extensive lagoon system here. The reef’s got an entrance of about 70 m wide and then it opens out to about 200 m width and it’s quite long. So, I’m not sure what the depth is, but we’ll find out once we’re in there. Lola be ahead of us. They’re already anchored up and got their sun shade on and they’re set up. Still 17 163 16.3 m. How about that? [Music] Well, that’s it for this episode. Thanks so much for watching. But could we ask you that big YouTube favor? Tap the thumbs up button for us if you could. We’d really appreciate it. And if you haven’t subscribed yet, here’s your chance. It’s absolutely free. And then you won’t miss our next episode as we sail overnight to yet another amazing piece of Suluazi. We hope you can join us then. And in the meantime, remember life’s for living. So make the most of every single day in the wind. That’s where you’ll find me. I’m in the wind. [Music]

After eleven unforgettable days exploring the remote beauty of Indonesia’s Sombori Islands—home to crystal-clear lagoons, hidden lakes, limestone caves, and pristine white sand beaches—we continue our sailing adventure northward on our circumnavigation of Sulawesi. But before leaving this tropical paradise behind, Karen convinces us to make one final stop at a breathtaking sea cave, and overcomes her fear of hitting the reef to capture stunning footage of the cave itself with our classic ketch, “Our Dreamtime”. Join us as we sail through this rarely visited corner of Southeast Asia, sharing the raw beauty, hidden gems, and sailing lifestyle that define off-the-beaten-path cruising in Indonesia.

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00:00 Intro
02:09 Sit Rep
08:57 Cheeseless Pizza
10:14 Never Leave
10:38 Local Supplies
11:32 Anchor Up
14:14 Sea Cave
18:21 Pulau Umbelle
20:30 Next