Fun at Bonerate reef

This being the middle of March, it is pointless waiting for the wind to take us south from Sulawesi, instead we settle for a break in the north-westerlies to power down across the Flores Sea. This means we can explore a beautiful looking reef near the island of Bonerate, which is only really accessible in calm weather. Sure the Volvos are chugging diesel like a severely dehydrated marathon runner chugs Powerade but you have to take a win where you can with this lifestyle.

The reef is glass-out perfection for a few days with just us and Wild One for company.

The days pass quickly with water activities (read tubing) for the kids who scream their heads off as we zoom around. This is the first time I have actually taken them tubing and despite the initial misgivings (I am too slow/safe/insert boring synonym here), I give them a good speedy run for their money and manage to throw Jake off TWICE. A win for mum.

Add a bit of snorkeling and a lot of cocktail sipping at sunset and that's pretty much all we do here. If the picture painted sounds perfect it's because it really is.

The snorkeling isn't anything spectacular but it is one of those places where it doesn't need to be as just swimming in the turquoise water never gets old.

There is something to be said for parking in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. It is so calm that in certain light it is hard to tell where the sky ends and the water begins, the colours blending seamlessly.

Anyway, we could have stayed for much longer but have to press on to get to Flores before the wind picks up again. We're still in the NW monsoon season so going west is only possible in calm weather. On the way we make a stop somewhere in Bonerate and have a beach fire in the evening to burn our rubbish.

On our first trip to Indonesia three years ago, we used to take our rubbish into town and leave it anywhere that looked like an official rubbish disposal site. Usually this was either a pile on the side of the street or some sort of bin / metal barrel. One time we even added it to local junk smoldering away on a town beach. But after we witnessed someone load said rubbish onto a boat and dump it in the harbour where we were anchored, we got other ideas this time around. Now we clean and separate everything into glass, metal and soft plastic. When we're out in open and deep water, we smash the glass overboard as well as the cans with any labels removed, they will eventually disintegrate back into sand and rust away respectively. Soft plastics go into our small rubbish bin and once we have a few bags accumulated (stored in the floor compartments in the cockpit) we find a quiet beach and burn it ourselves. All organic waste just goes overboard. The system is by no means perfect but as good as it can get under the circumstances and definitely much better than dumping it on towns which struggle to deal with their own waste. In a country that's the 2nd largest marine polluter in the world (China is first), we need not make it worse.

The plastic waste we produce is mainly from staple foods like flour, pasta and junk food. We don't buy anything canned anymore if it can be replaced with dry or fresh stuff. Cans of tomato are now replaced with fresh tomatoes and tomato paste. Dried chickpeas and beans are cooked in advance and frozen for use and taste much better anyway. Slowly but surely we're reducing our waste footprint by eating as much fresh stuff as possible, these days our main food source is the local market where we get not only fresh fruit and vegetables directly from the farmers but also tofu, tempe, eggs, rice, beans and all sort of spices.

Back to the beach in Bonerate where the tide line is so densely littered with junk, it is impossible to find a spot to stand without stepping on it. There are the usual suspects of bags, cups, bottles and styrofoam in various shapes and sizes (from broken cooler boxes I think as I have seen fishermen carry them). The real find here is footwear, especially thongs/flip flops and various kinds of sandals. The shoe harvest is so plentiful that all seven of us in attendance can find a pair to wear within minutes.

Standing upwind from thre fire, I sip my pina colada (thanks Baubau pineapples) in my new pair of shoes, trying hard but failing to ignore the mess while our rubbish melts away in minutes.

Slowly I start chucking a few shoes and bottles around the fire into the mix and before you know it I have gone full Rambo picking up everything around me. The fire, which could be described as modest before this, now turns nuclear with a thick stream of black smoke rising from it.

Unperturbed, I continue my clean up effort and not long after, Cath joins the madness. As the sun sets over the otherwise dreamy bay, the two of us are bent over our patch; picking, chucking and avoiding the smoke, while the guys stand a bit further down the beach sipping their drinks and shaking their heads at the folly.

Lara and Maya find a discarded milk crate and repeatedly fill it to the brim with bottles and other crap and it all goes on the fire too.

I haven't done the research on what's worse, let it all end up in the ocean to slowly disintegrate into micro particles which will transform all life into plastic-ingesting mutants OR burn the mess into poisonous gases that will go towards overheating the planet while also poisoning us. I like to think I am doing the right thing and in any case, can't help myself anyway.

We leave our patch of beach a bit cleaner this time and have a dip in the dark bay lit up by our monster fire which is quite splendid actually.