Indonesia to Singapore Yacht Crewing 1975

Rod Montgomery and his new wife Brenda owned the 34 foot long yawl. We killed time on Lombok Island and Java waiting for the seasonal monsoon winds to change. That never seemed to happen that spring.
We arrived in Popoh Harbour south of Talungagung on Java with a young monkey companion. During our week in Popoh, Brenda and I escaped for some Javanese sightseeing while Rodney watched the boat. By the time that we returned we had been thoroughly inspected by the local military and police. Eventually, we made some new Talungagung friends and gave Bonzer the monkey a better home. We finally left to be greeted by Indian Ocean storms.

From Popoh Harbour to Singapore took more than two weeks. We never got more than 50 miles from land and were constantly fighting adverse currents and winds.
It took us three whole days to sail just the 50 miles through the Sunda Straits from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea. The clouds in the photos are volcanic smoke. On a single memorable day we sailed within a few miles of Krakatoa (known locally as Krakatau) as it erupted; we spotted some waterspouts and found a capsized local cargo boat full of teak. (It was very similar to those palaus that I saw years later in the Jakarta harbour). After some debate, we left without claiming salvage and headed north.

We sailed through the Bangka Strait and across the equator to the chaos of Singapore.