Komodo Island, Indonesia Sunday March 17
Shipboard Meanderings......March 15-16 We have 2 days at sea before we anchor in Slawi Bay and have to take a tender from the ship to land on Komodo Island. Sailing slowly west through the Timor Sea with Australia to our south and the islands of Indonesia to our north it was a very calm relaxing 2 days. It's still hot, but it doesn't seem as bad, maybe I am finally getting used to it. But as we get closer to the equator the sun seems to get more intense. We have 3 ports in Indonesia, so we decided to exchange some US dollars to Indonesian Rupiah. $1.00 US=14,000 Rupiah. So, exchanging $300.00 US we had about 4,200,000 Rupiah. For about 3 days we were Indonesian millionaires, but it's all in perspective. It was rather fun having all those bills. Indonesia readily takes US currency, but sometimes it's easier to have a little of the local money. More than half of the ship staff call Indonesia home, and you could feel the excitement among them as we were getting closer t