Eight hours of overnight cruise brought us to cruise day 7 at Sakar Island, inhabited by 700 people, all living in one village. Typically in the islands village councillors have taken over the role of “chief” and somebody nominated by the councillor, or the councillor himself will board visiting vessels to control activities. They don’t want us anchoring, fishing, diving and snorkeling just anywhere. They also usually don’t allow visitors to fish with sinkers and often won’t allow spear fishing. We are not allowed to catch turtles, dugongs, sea cucumbers and other of their favourite foods. The councillors on Sakar also kept a tally of snorkelors, divers and fish caught so that we could pay a fee for us to use their assets. These sensible rules appear to be partly about reef and species preservation and partly about maintaining control over their territory.

Sakar Is. is actually a dormant volcano which last erupted about 1880. Much of the island is very fertile volcanic soil but on some of the steep slopes landslides have stripped away the top soil, leaving almost bare rock. It is interesting to see jungle covering 75% of the island beside large areas where grass can exist on the slopes but not trees or gardens.

Early morning at the volcanic Sakar Island

An early morning flight took us up to the top of the volcano and into the caldera with it’s lake.

The lake in the caldera, at the top of the volcano

On the way back to True North we saw a huge pod of spinner dolphins, perhaps 100 of them, a large shark and a manta ray.

Later in the morning a dozen or so youths swam about 400 from the fringing reef to join others with their canoes at the rear of True North. They wanted to come on board but the village councillor and his assistant kept them under control. Their water skills are amazing, not surprisingly because the water is both their work place and play ground.

The group in the middle are balancing on an upturned canoe

We went ashore for an hour or so, visiting the gardening area beside the beach where the local farmer grows coconuts, betel nuts, bread fruit, cocoa and yams. This was a good opportunity for a beach swim.

A great time at the beach

The afternoon was for snorkeling again, this time in a trench or almost a lagoon, where again we marveled at the varieties of coral and fish, including a large turtle and a reef shark.

Colourful underwater creatures

And fun above the water

Then it was party time. True North carries lots of old clothing for fancy dress and, helped by cocktails we all soon got into party mode. There were some crazy outfits. Jo went in a red petticoat and I had on a short cheer leaders skirt with black bra.

Easy to party

By 9 pm a few of us were siting in the fresh air at the bow for an hour or so, while we cruised to our next island, with the party still going until about midnight.