User:(WT-en) South Sea Nomads

South Sea Nomads is a company set up by a brother and sister duo that operates on Gili Trawangan off Lombok, Indonesia. They run the Gili islands only party boat and offer a couple of other trips that visit the isolated islands, waterfalls, volcanoes, beautiful reefs, wrecks and world class surf breaks of Lombok and Sumbawa.

The Party Boat
The part boat runs 2-3 times per week from Gili Trawangan at 3.30pm. The afternoon is spent cruising around the 3 Gili islands, stopping for time to swim and snorkel before sunset and a tasty dinner is served. After dinner the music gets pumped up and the onboard party continues until around midnight. Its a popular trip so booking ahead is recommended as you cant just turn up in the afternoon and jump on board.

Moyo and Satonda.
The trip to Moyo and Satonda, off the north coast of north Sumbawa, is a 5 night 6 day trip where the nights are spent camping on isolated beaches. Moyo is home to 2 waterfalls, a stunning reef and wall dive and a small world war 2 wreck, whilst Satonda lies north of Moyo and is a small volcano island with a lake in the crater. The island is home to a large colony of bats that fly off to Moyo each evening to feed. Their nightly flight is a truly stunning sight. Around Satonda there are some lovely snorkelling and spots. Moyo and Satonda is also a half way stopping off point for boats that go to Komodo.

Sekotong and Desert Point
The trip to Sekotong and Desert Point is is for 2 nights and 3 days. The time is spent island hopping the untouristy islands of Sekotong and the world class surf break Desert Point.

The Boat Build
In 2009 a brother and sister duo decided to pack up everything they had and head to the Philippines and build a boat. We headed to Southern Leyte and got started by hiring a boat builder and 4 carpenters. We wanted to ensure that the wood we used to build hte boat was legally farmed and part of a tree re-planting program so permits were obtained from the Department of Natural Resources and the next 2 months were spent up in the jungles of Southern Letye finding trees that were large enough for the keel of the boat. Finally we had success and the boat build could start. Over the next few months we had several friends travel out to Southern Leyte and help us with painting, sanding and moral support. Several months of blood sweat, tears and tanduay late the boat was finished and ready for the water.

Southern Leyte to Gili Trawangan
In July 2010 we finally left Southern Leyte on our journey to Indonesia. Our first stop was Cebu City on the neighbouring island of Cebu, after a day of stocking up on a few treasured western food, wine and cider products we left Cebu on our birthday and headed north to Malapascua. As we headed north and cracked open the wine and cider we spotted a water spout several miles ahead. Then another one popped up and within a few minutes there were 4 dead ahead. We could see the storm was moving east to decided to carry on to Malapascua and soon enough the water spouts died away. We spent one night in Malapascua where we met a Finnish couple who asked if they could come with us to Boracay. From that point on we always had backpackers with us.

A few days later we got to Boracay and said a sad fairwell to Kimmo and Sini and welcomed aboard Sarah and Sue from Canada and Dave and Linsay from Scotland. We spent the next 2 weeks travelling to Coron and around to northern Busanga in search of manatees. Lynsays birthday was while we were island hopping off norhtern Busanga and we had a BBQ on a deserted island and left them to sleep on the beach, the following mornign Lynsays flashing a beautiful pearl ring on her engagment finger! Unfortunatly we couldnt find any manatees so after the excitment of the engagment and a few days of searching for manatees we headed south again towards El Nido in Palawan.

Once we arrived at El Nido we spent a few days exploring the beautiful archipeligo before heading to Puerto Princessa. Dave and Lynsay left the boat in El Nido to travel overland, Sarah and Sue stayed aboard and we picked up an American guy called Pete.

We spent a couple of weeks in Puerto Princessa, stocking up supplies, exploring the underground river before visiting immigration for our first experience of exiting a country by boat. We would recommend not dealing with immigration in Palawan, the woman who works there is unbelivably rude!

We left Puerto Princessa with an Austrailian, Arden, and a French Swedidh couple Jans and and headed south to the tiny town of Brookes Point where we had a few problems with the gears but after a couple of days of travelling over land back to Puerto Princessa we got going again and spent out last night in the Philippines on a small island just north of Balabac.

The crossing from the Philippines to Kudat in northern Borneo was great, perfect weather and we all sat out on deck sunbathing as we saw Borneo getting closer and closer. Entering Borneo was painless, the bloke in immigration got slightly excited when he saw Kits passport as he thought he was about to meet Russel Brand! Jans and left us in Kudat to explore Borneos jungles then we headed south to Kota Kinabalu to re supply.

KK harbour has to be one of the most horrible harbours we have visited! We quickly re-stocked, picked up another backpacker Katherine and headed south to Labaun where we stocked up on some duty frees before entering Brunei.

Once in Brunei we met an Austrailian couple on a beautiful catamaran called Shark Bite. By coincidence they were friends with 2 friends of ours who visited us in the Philippines and helped us with sanding and painting!

Once out of Brunei we headed to Miri in Sarawak where we moored up in a marina for the first time and had the luxury of restocking the water from right next to the boat! After a night in Miri we continued south to Kuching.

Kuching is up river and the fresh water killed all the barnacles has had made the boat their home. We said goodbye to Arden in Kuching and welcomed on Matias from Switzland and M from Germany. The 9 days we spent travelling from Kuching to Tioman were some of our favourite of the crossing. We visited past the Anabas islands and did some incredible snorkelling. These islands we will most definatly visit again!

We finally entered Malaysia in late September and spent the following month relaxing in Tioman.

Contact Information
[www.southseanomads.com]

082145804522 / 082147789559

info@southseanomads.com