Ocean Escapes
Indonesia’s 17,000
Reasons to Cruise
Rufus Island in Raja Ampat.
Owners are familiar with Indonesia’s location on yachting’s final frontier. They have heard stories of the Raja Ampat region, where birds-of-paradise skim Tiffany blue seas. Most will know of Raja Ampat’s marine diversity, where manta processions are photobombed by bumbling ocean sunfish the size of cars. One regional scuba site holds a world record for over 350 fish species logged during a single dive.
The Last Dragon
Komodo National Park is also familiar to Owners. Five islands in the park, including Komodo, host the eponymous dragon. The world’s largest living lizard can weigh 100 kilograms.
The Komodo dragon’s intramandibular hinge allows jaws to snap and swallow huge chunks of meat: up to 80% of their body weight in one ravenous meal. Their sense of smell is unrivalled, their saliva is poisonous, their diet cannibalistic: dragon by name and nature. Komodo’s sandy shores have become a dramatic - and popular - charter zone.
Sailing Ahead of the Pack
But here’s the bigger story. For the ten destinations popular with charter guests - including Raja Ampat, Komodo, Bali and Lombok, stunning as they are - Indonesia has another 17,000 islands to explore. Few islands have ever welcomed a superyacht. An Owner with an exploration yacht will possess the only bar, spa and dive centre for miles around.
Allure of Alor
The Alor archipelago, 1,000 kilometres east of Bali, is a fine example. Volcanoes shadow 20 islands and tower above seas up to 3,500 metres deep. Here the Indonesian Throughflow, a tropical current that washes nutrients from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, carries hungry blue whales, giant trevally and hammerheads with it.
Fifty notable dive sites stretch from Alor island to Pantar island. Each appears like a living Netflix documentary starring oriental sweetlips and neon nudibranchs. These species bed down on black volcanic seabeds and 500 types of coral.
On land, the archipelago is home to 100 distinct ethnic groups. The Takpala indigenous people, as one example, build pyramid dwellings using plaited bamboo walls and coconut leaf roofs: natural air-conditioning. Other groups have guarded weaving looms and bronze drums from cultures originating from as far as Vietnam and Polynesia. Indonesia is a living museum.
Rice terraces are a unique feature of Indonesia’s landscape.
Indonesian Sails, Dutch Design
Perhaps the most off-beat cruising ground is Sulawesi. The world’s 11th-largest island is a seldom-trodden arcadia of mountaintop rice paddies, primary rainforest and subaquatic National Parks. Owners will be among the first to dive in.
Sulawesi is also where giant ironwood trees are dragged to barefoot boatyards to be shaped using biblical tools. (Vlissingen is centuries removed.) These traditional boats are called pinisi.
Today the two-masted schooners transport washing machines, dried fish and mobile phones around Indonesia. Although pinisis original naval design mirrors 17th-century Dutch East Indies ships, which traded nutmeg, pepper and cinnamon from the Spice Islands due east.
Remnants of Dutch influence remain in the Indonesian language. In Sulawesi harbours, an avonturir (adventurer) can ask a boomzaken (harbour master) for a faktur (invoice) for onderdil (spare parts). We’ll raise a glass of Bintang beer, a century-old Heineken copy brewed on Java, to that.
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