Saturday 27 January 2024

Now that we are in Indonesia we will be doing our shopping a little differently.


A countertop can be made of anything. I find the markets much
more interesting than a supermarket 

To rise early in the morning to purchase the best and freshest produce at the traditional markets has literally become part of our lives. Even if you are not purchasing at these Markets they are meant to be seen and enjoyed — full of locals and with counters brimming with ripe fresh produce and household staples.


Dried and salted fish.


Traditional markets are still at the heart of everyday life in Indonesia. They are usually known as 'wet markets' they are packed with people trading everyday of the week. Here you can find various basic daily needs where buyers can meet directly with sellers and can bargain prices. Besides, markets tend to be more affordable, and groceries such as vegetables and food are fresher. We will be purchasing our fresh vegetables, fruit and protein from these traditional markets as we sail through the archipelago. 


Here part of the street becomes the market.
Nobody minds they just drive or ride around the stalls.

Traditional markets are called Pasar in Indonesian, and Pasar Besar meaning big market. Some of them are very large, mostly unique, all inexpensive, and you can find them everywhere, some are small and catering for only a few villages within walking distance, but at every market you will find a good variety of fresh produce to keep your supplies topped up. 


Take your own bags and containers as everyone will try to give you plastic.

Not surprisingly, these markets cater all kinds of needs, ranging from traditional culinary to various cooking utensils and some even have a variety of clothing. In the Pasar Besar (big market) you can find shops with basic needs in bulk like rice, beans, sugar, oil, flour, etc for retail. Locals buy in a larger amounts for resale in the small village shops.


The markets are crowded, busy, noisy but oh so colourful

There are a number of different traditional markets. What is referred to as a “wet” market is where you will find protein, fish, chicken and red meat and they normally operate from very early in the morning until mid morning where stocks are very low from 9am. You will also find this the case for the fruit and vegetable markets. However contrary to this we have found a couple of night markets. For the “wet and traditional markets” I suggest you to go in the morning (7-8 am) so it will not be too hot, take small notes and learn the basic numbers so you can understand the price. 


All sorts of seafood can be found.

If you want protein you must be willing to head to the “Wet Market”

There are no beautifully arranged goods in refrigeration here. Most of the vendors sell small bundles. The produce is sometimes artistically arranged and at other times it’s hap-hazzard. I also found they usually specialise in what they sell. Some vendors only selling chilli, another may only be selling garlic and the egg man is definitely where you get your eggs. Why because they sell to the same people each day, purchases are made on a daily basis. The egg vendor will carefully check each egg via a light to see if they are fresh and usually using twine bundle up however many trays you want creating a handle for you to carry your eggs by. We have found carrying eggs in this manner to be a dangerous occupation via, bike/bus, walking, dinghy ride in sometimes choppy weather, so we have reusable egg cartons. We get strange looks when we present them to be filled. But better that than egg mishaps all the way back to the boat.


Karen getting our egg boxes filled.


Only beautiful ripe red tomatoes and chilies available at this stall.

Indonesian traditional markets are one of the main economic centres, where farmers, fishermen, gardener, can sell their products and consumers can buy them at a much cheaper price. The market is a part of social life, where everyone gathers daily to buy their supplies. These activities are a means of community activities and social network. The the atmosphere at traditional markets is lively. Vendors and buyers chat with each other because they see each other regularly. There is a kind of friendship appeared between vendors and their loyal customers. It is loud, there are no price tags, you must ask the price and then haggle until “best” price is found, whereby both seller and purchaser are happy.


A larger selection of produce beautifully displayed.


Everyone is very polite in their bartering, sometimes it’s quite comical to watch as the facial expressions and body language tell you more about the transaction than the rapidly spoken words. There is one thing that I found amusing, there are some ladies from whom I have bought from, who call me “dear”.  They might also say it to all of their clients I guess, but it is always funny to me every time I am referred to in this way.


Choose the fish with the clear eyes and it shouldn’t smell fishy 


Recently a beautiful young vendor had pineapples for sale. Her price for 9 pineapples was 50k (to me). However I had just seen her take 25k from a local. With much smiling and saying “tidak” (no) about the price and pointing to the woman who was walking away with her 9 for half the price, I had no luck she just beamed and said 50k, I gave in and paid my $5 Australian for my 9 pineapples. As westerners be prepared to pay a little more for your produce. They aren’t purposely (well I suppose they are) ripping you off, but if you know your numbers and a few pleasantries followed by a big smile you can normally get a good price, and $5 for 9 pineapples not bad but very “good” (bargus) price compared to Australia. Such is life being the only westerner in the market with red hair, I sort of stick out.


Night market Wanci Wakatobi


Our favourite night market so far has been Wanci in Wakatobi. As soon as the sun is setting, the night market in Wanci comes to life. It offers a great choice of the freshest seafood, vegetables and fruits. You can see the day’s catch spread out on wooden tables, in buckets or on the floor. Yes whole fish just lying on the floor. A wide variety of snapper, tuna, barracuda, crabs and the foodies delight, sea urchins, are all for sale. The sea urchins are best enjoyed raw or slightly steamed and are offered at an unbeatable price. In front of the market, grilled fish and a variety of traditional dishes are prepared for you to enjoy on the spot or to take away. My favourite were the ladies selling all sorts of pastries, cakes and donuts, they were deLISH. I would always turn up with a small gift for the children of these stall holders, and a few extra donuts I found were always placed into my bag. The night market is located at Marina Bay close to where we moored the boat, it opens around 4 pm in the afternoon the night market can certainly entertain you for a few hours even if you are not purchasing.


Everything is weight with antique scales, no need for new electronic versions 


After purchasing our food at the markets, I clean all the fruit and vegetables in a solution of 1:5 vinegar and water. Soaking and scrubbing those that can be scrubbed. Drying and then storing them. Meat I wash in 1:10 vinegar to water, rinse in water and dry before cryovac and freezing. After you see how the produce is transported and then displayed you will understand why I do this. 


However when you do find a supermarket! You go absolutely bonkers!!! But you pay the price for it!


How ridiculous do these capsicums look wrapped in plastic.

You can find more info on how I store produce on Dreamtimesail blog under Our Galley tab at the top of this page, plus check out the contents page for more detailed information and more blogs.


TIPS


- take cloth bags to carry your produce, they want to give you plastic for everything. (Which we forgot in Tual 😳)

- take small notes.

- learn a few words like numbers, how much, thank you, and if you want to be more adventurous the names of the produce. 

- take small gifts for the children. We have little keyring koalas, we always give out 6 or so each market visit.

- take your own reusable egg cartons (their egg trays contain 30 eggs) and containers for other things like sweets, donuts, rice, chickpeas all of these and more are not sold in packets, I found it easy for the vendor to weight the item then just pour it into my container.





Thank you to all who support us through watching our videos, reading our blogs or who step up and support us though Patreon and Ko-Fi. You inspire us everyday to be creative 🙌

You can help us out and support our creative work for FREE. 
By watching, 👍, 🔔, Subscribing, Commenting and best of all Sharing this video or blog with your friends 

If you would like to make a donation towards our creative work, you can by heading over to Ko-Fi they take no fees so the support goes directly into helping us buy and upgrade equipment 


Do you want more? 
Patreon gives you that … you get behind the scenes updates, 
Patreon only photos and posts, you can watch our 
episodes ad free and before they go public … you get it first!


Another way of support is through buying from our store.
Checkout the range of books we have available 

Friday 26 January 2024

Rainman Portable Watermaker Demo/Review after 3 Years use – Making fresh water on a boat

Safe and readily available portable water is important for all of us, without it we all know what happens. Whether it is used for drinking, domestic use, food production or sanitation purposes fresh clean water is essential. Supplying our fresh drinkable water, is one of the most important self reliant systems we have onboard Our Dreamtime.


The areas we sail to, in remote, 3rd world countries and even areas of the Mediterranean don’t have universal and equitable access to safe drinking water. 


Polluted waterways like this is not where we want our water to come from.


In Australia it is accessible everywhere it’s something we take for granted. Through marinas we visit and town water supplies, whenever we pulled into dock we could just fill up the tanks. However since leaving the comforts of civilised treated water plants and pumped water to our facets, where we have sufficient, continuous, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water. 


Turning on a tap and using water has taken on a whole new meaning to us.


Nowhere since Cooktown (May 2023) have we been able to access safe clean portable water from the land. That means every drop we have used onboard, for drinking, cooking, cleaning bathing and sanitisation on Our Dreamtime we have needed to produce ourselves through our desalination unit.


These units are not cheap, but for the type of sailing we do we feel it is essential. Yes there will be some ol’ salts out there that say “we didn’t have them years ago and survived” well the answer to that is yes, but many were ill from the water they did ingest.


Below we take you through some of the questions we are asked about water onboard.



But if you want water flowing from your tap constantly, how is this achieved on a boat? This question is even more important when you are sailing in remote regions of the world where water quality isn’t to standard. Most vessels in the private yacht industry will use a reverse osmosis water-maker to produce water on-board. 



So what is a reverse osmosis water-maker? Reverse osmosis uses high-pressure pump to push sea water through a membrane. This removes the salt and solids to produce fresh water. The next step is to pump fresh water into dedicated desalination or fresh water tanks. Finally in reverse osmosis, the last step is to disperse concentrated (salt/solids) overboard. 



Do we notice the difference between town water and reverse osmosis water? The answer is yes – the cleaner the water the nicer it tastes. Your tap water has been collected through a natural process. You collect water on a boat through desalination which is not a natural process.  In many countries chemicals are also added to the water, which will affect the taste. Reverse osmosis has no to very little taste, the taste that you do have is probably due to your tank residue.




Are there health issues drinking reverse osmosis water? There is virtually no tried-and-tested evidence to suggest that reverse osmosis water is harmful to your health. If you eat a balanced diet and do not suffer from conditions like severe acid reflux or gastrointestinal ulcers, drinking reverse osmosis water will have no impact on your overall health and wellbeing. However the system does remove healthy minerals including calcium, magnesium, potassium and bicarbonates from the water. To compensate this you can easily add Electrolyte powders. They are specifically formulated to infuse water with minerals and electrolytes that have been removed by the reverse osmosis system. We simply mix the powder into our first litre of drinking water of the day. 



Note: Most electrolyte powders are used as powdered sports drinks and gym beverages, and may contain artificial flavourings and colorants that may be harmful to your body in excess amounts. Choose flavourless and sugar-free powder mixes for the best health.


So what reverse osmosis system do we have onboard? We operate a Rainman Portable Watermaker to produce pure, fresh, drinking water from the sea onboard Our Dreamtime. We have been using this system for 3 years. Ours is a 240 volt model that requires a generator to run it, but as we have a diesel generator onboard it has been an easy addition to our essential equipment onboard. 



So what do we think about the unit? What we do believe is we couldn’t sail the areas of the world that we do without a water-maker. If you would like to see our full review on the Rainman Water-Maker after 3 Years use follow the link below.


Making fresh water on a boat


The video shows the very simple steps to set up and operate a Rainman Portable Watermaker to produce pure, fresh, drinking water from the sea onboard a boat via reverse osmosis. It’s also our honest, totally unsponsored, review of the system after using it on Our Dreamtime for the past three years, long enough to really know the product. We discuss an initial problem we had with the unit and the company’s response and the availability of spares and service. We also test its rate of production against the advertised figures and finally give you our verdict on whether we think this is a thumbs up or down.


We hope you find it interesting and also check out our regular Dreamtime Sail Episodes dedicated to our full time, cruising life in Australia and South East Asia.





Thank you to all who support us through watching our videos, reading our blogs or who step up and support us though Patreon and Ko-Fi. You inspire us everyday to be creative 🙌

You can help us out and support our creative work for FREE. 
By watching, 👍, 🔔, Subscribing, Commenting and best of all Sharing this video or blog with your friends 

If you would like to make a donation towards our creative work, you can by heading over to Ko-Fi they take no fees so the support goes directly into helping us buy and upgrade equipment 


Do you want more? 
Patreon gives you that … you get behind the scenes updates, 
Patreon only photos and posts, you can watch our 
episodes ad free and before they go public … you get it first!


Another way of support is through buying from our store.
Checkout the range of books we have available 


Happy Australia Day 🇦🇺


 

Thursday 25 January 2024

Life’s good in the slow lane, please put your indicator on and pass on by, we are in no rush.

 Slow travel isn’t complicated. It’s, by definition, taking the road less travelled. It’s about embracing individual experience versus culture-led holidays and trends. Traveling can be one of the most rewarding human experiences — opening your mind and worldview to new places, connecting with new people, and immersing yourself in local cultures. It can be meaningful, memorable, rejuvenating, and energising.

We travel at under 30 Klm per day

It’s hard to pinpoint its exact beginnings but the slow travel revolution—an intentional move towards more mindful, more environmentally responsible, less purely convenient modes of getting around. It’s about the journey, not just the destination. Being excited about where you’re going, but being just as excited by how you get there, the people you meet, the sights you see and the experiences you have along the way.


Meeting local people and being welcomed into their community
is a very special part of why we travel like we do.


It means tamping down our own built-in, conditioned obsessions with time and allowing the world to move just a little slower so that we can actually notice it. For that to occur there is one fundamental thing that must happen, YOU must slow down.


Slow traveling is to soak in everything that both a place and the voyage there have to offer. It’s about taking the time to reflect and engage with the now, not rushing, not taking for granted, and not doing anything unless you want to. It’s about taking the time to make a connection— it’s about stopping to properly connect with a place and its people. Not ticking a box.


Truly knowing the people of the country you are traveling through,
only enriches your experience 

Sailing has given us the slowest way of travel unless of course we were walking. It’s a way to see the world, be immersed in the places and cultures we visit. It was once described to me that our way of travel is the whole “three course meal accompanied by a fine wine, not just a tasting platter washed down with a beer”.


Even shopping is now done at a slower paces. No rushing to get packaged goods,
through a checkout and home. We converse with the seller and they remember you next time.

Sailing excels at simplicity. We are freed from the pressure of ‘seeing everything’, you can actually relax a bit and enjoy the journey. There’s a better chance that we will meet local people, see a few sights off the traditional tourist path and get an appreciation for a different way of life - which some would argue is the whole point of travel in the first place.


There are amazing discoveries to be found along the journey.

The old saying, take the time to stop and smell the roses, is just about as fine a point as could be put on it. It’s more than just an ethos though, it’s a way of living, and a way of approaching new experiences. 


Since the 17th of April 2023, 284 days ago, we have traveled, 3985 nautical miles, 7380 kilometres. That’s about 26 kilometres per day - So some could say we are even travelling slower than a walking human.


Life’s good in the slow lane, please put your indicator on and pass on by, we are in no rush.


Cheers R&K 


You slow paced travel can be seen in short snippets on our Dreamtimesail YouTube Channel. 






Thank you to all who support us through watching our videos, reading our blogs or who step up and support us though Patreon and Ko-Fi. You inspire us everyday to be creative 🙌

You can help us out and support our creative work for FREE. 
By watching, 👍, 🔔, Subscribing, Commenting and best of all Sharing this video or blog with your friends 

If you would like to make a donation towards our creative work, you can by heading over to Ko-Fi they take no fees so the support goes directly into helping us buy and upgrade equipment 


Do you want more? 
Patreon gives you that … you get behind the scenes updates, 
Patreon only photos and posts, you can watch our 
episodes ad free and before they go public … you get it first!


Another way of support is through buying from our store.
Checkout the range of books we have available