Seventeen thousand islands, one yacht

Indonesia is wider than the continental United States and counts more than seventeen thousand islands, which makes it less a destination than a decade of destinations. Nobody charters Indonesia. You charter a corner of it, chosen by season, and the corners are absurdly good. Dragons in one, the richest reefs on the planet in another, and between them volcanoes, spice islands and a boatbuilding coast that was launching ocean-going ships by hand long before anyone arrived to be impressed.

One country, two seasons

The fleet migrates, and you should migrate with it. From roughly May to September the dry south-east trades favour Komodo and the islands of Flores, all savannah hills and blue channels. From October to April the calm moves east, and the yachts follow it to Raja Ampat, off the western tip of New Guinea. Many of the finest yachts in these waters are phinisi, timber schooners built by Bugis and Konjo shipwrights in South Sulawesi, and a good modern phinisi, all teak decks and canvas, is the native craft of the archipelago. The crossing between the two grounds runs past Sulawesi and across the Banda Sea, and some owners consider that delivery leg the best voyage of the year. Gateways are straightforward, Bali for the west, Labuan Bajo for Komodo, Sorong for Raja Ampat.

Komodo and Flores

Komodo National Park protects the last wild dragons on earth, walked with a ranger on Komodo and Rinca, and the sensible schedule does it at first light before the heat arrives. Climb Padar at dawn for the view over three differently coloured bays, then spend the afternoon at Pink Beach, where crushed red coral tints the sand. At Karang Makassar, manta rays hold station in the current in numbers that make counting pointless, and at dusk near Rinca thousands of flying foxes leave the mangroves in a river of wings. The park's tides run hard, so each day is planned around water as much as wildlife, which is half the pleasure of somewhere genuinely wild.

You walk with dragons before breakfast and drift with mantas before lunch, and in Komodo that is an ordinary day.

Raja Ampat and the spice islands

Raja Ampat sits at the centre of the Coral Triangle and holds more marine species than anywhere else on earth. At Cape Kri, a single survey dive recorded 374 species of fish, which remains the benchmark for the planet. Above the waterline it may be better still. The karst lagoon of Wayag and the lookout at Piaynemo supply the aerial photographs their subject, and the south around Misool is a maze of hidden lagoons with ancient rock art on the cliffs. Villages here manage their reefs under customary tenure known as sasi, and visitor fees fund the patrols that keep the sharks in the water. En route between seasons, the Banda Islands repay a stop. Nutmeg from these ten specks once commanded prices that redrew maps, and Run, the smallest of them, is the island England ceded to the Dutch in 1667 in the exchange that left Manhattan English.

Ashore and at the table

Indonesian food rewards curiosity. Ikan bakar, whole fish grilled over coconut husks and glossed with sweet soy, is the great beach lunch of the archipelago, always with sambal, and every island's sambal is a small act of local patriotism. In Bali, order sate lilit anywhere and give a day's notice for ceremonial babi guling. Labuan Bajo has grown from fishing town to gateway port without losing its morning market, and a glass of es kelapa muda, young coconut over ice, is the correct anchorage drink. And on the beach at Tana Beru in South Sulawesi, phinisi hulls still rise by hand and eye, without drawings, the way the yacht beneath you may have been born. Season decides the route here more than anywhere else on earth, so the earlier the conversation starts, the better the yacht and the better the corner. Start it with our charter team.