We sailed a little corner of the Indonesian archipelago, which is comprised of over 17,000 islands, over the course of four days.

Our amazing boat, the Silolona, was designed after traditional Indonesian trade boats that sailed along the historical Spice Routes.


right: Nasir + Patti

Before we set sail off the coast of Labuana, Nasir, one of the crew members who also built the boat, performed an Indonesian ritual for safe passage. Nasir turned out to be a total rockstar - singing, dancing and tandem water skiing with me.

You can Magiver a toy out of anything in Indonesia.

When we would arrive at a new beach, we would all spend 20 minutes picking up the debris that had washed up on shore. Among the refuse are small brown glass bottles, which seem to be everywhere. We saved those and the crew showed us how to turn them into homeade lanterns by filling them with kerosene and making a homemade wick. We lit the beach by perching them on the rocks (see all the little specks of light above). At the end of the night we lit giant rice paper lanterns and sent them off with a prayer. (Moses is now a pyro thanks to this particular evening.)

We built a fire and watched in awe as the chef cooked a gorgeous traditional Indonesian barbeque of fish, chicken and vegetables with beautiful sauces and salads to accompany.

The food on the boat was beyond. Everything was super fresh, with the fish and produce usually picked up from an island the same day or sold to the boat directly from sellers on the water.

Chicken satay, tempe, egg, tofu, rice steamed in palm leaf and steamed veggies covered in satay sauce.

Pepes Ikan (Fish in Banana Leaf)

Tempe Manis (Sweet Tempe)

Sambal Colo Colo (Spicy Salsa)

We disembarked the boat to go dragon spotting and were a little trepidatious. Kimonos are carnivirous and can run up to 20kmh.