From Jakarta, Dave and I traveled by bus and ojeck (mini-bus) to the fishing village of Sumur, on the west coast of Java. We settled into a basic losmen (guesthouse) for the night; it catered to local Indonesians, and was the only place in town for us to stay. A single dim light bulb hung in our musty room that was furnished with two worn cots. A well outside provided water. The central toilet was a hole in the ground that you squatted over and flushed by scooping water into it from a basin. Par for the course and all we could expect for $2.50 U.S. per night (for both of us). Because of tumultuous national politics over the past couple of years, Indonesia has been in a tourism slump. The proprietor of the losmen told us (with help from our phrasebook) that we were the first "white people" to stay there this year. In the morning, Dave and I carried our gear down the dusty dirt road that served as Sumur's main street. We passed by food stands overflowing with bananas, coconuts, papayas, cigarettes and shiny cellophane-wrapped treats. People sat in front of their simple wooden and corrugated tin shacks, smiling and saying, "Hallo, mister!" to us as we passed by. "Hallo, mister" is the one English phrase that every Indonesian man, woman, and child seems to know and use quite liberally. Two hundred yards from the losmen, the road ended at a beach lined with a dozen fishing boats. They ranged from 15 to 25 feet long, with rotted planked hulls, rusty diesel-powered outboards or inboards and black oil-stained wooden decks. A small, covered captain's cockpit popped up at the front before their deep, upswept bows.A few puffy clouds lounged in the backotherwise brilliant blue sky. With an entourage of a couple of dozen villagers in tow, we picked an open spot between two of the boats and set about our construction project. Dave began stashing our gear in dry bags while I assembled the kayak. Word travels fast in a small town like Sumur, so a hundred or so of the locals crowded in tight to see the kayak take shape, giving me only inches of breathing room. When I accidentally poked some of the kids with kayak frame parts, the villagers laughed. They followed my every move, pointing and giggling as if they were watching a major sporting event. "Ooohs" and "aaahs" reverberated throughout the audience as our kayak steadily came into shape.


After sweating through the process in the 35-degree Celsius heat, we packed the kayak, pushed off the beach and waved goodbye, paddling south into Selamat Datang (Welcome) Bay, heading toward Ujung Kulon.