Chasing Summer –

October 11, 2025

Ternate is a wonderful port destination. The Odyssey is the longest boat that they have ever had docked there. Only about three cruise ships a year will make port here. So, for most people, we were the novelty. Everywhere the passengers went, the locals wanted pictures or just to talk to us. The kids were going crazy, and someone taught them to high-five, so just about every kid under the age of 10 I met wanted a high 5 every foreigner walking past.

Let’s just say that many of us are feeling very famous and will be in several Indonesian slideshows later on in the day.

The consequence of having less tourism is that the tourist sites are a little rough around the edges. For a population of only about 200,000, there are a few things for visitors to see.

Due to a lack of major transportation or organized tours available on travel sites, one of our residents found an agency that was willing to organize a culture tour for 90 of us. Now that sounds horrible, 90 people on one tour, but what they did was split us into three main groups, and then each of those three main groups had several vehicles that we were split into, so that not all ninety of us were seeing the same things at the same time. I was in Group A2, and there were seven of us in the vehicle.

My group started at the Sultan’s Palace Museum. Here, besides the palace, is a museum that houses some of the history of the region, including portraits of the Sultan, traditional clothing, weapons, and tools.

Outside of the museum are the less-maintained palace grounds, including a pond that has koi and a park.

The Legend Behind the Water Feature is that three goddesses or angels flew down from the sky using their scarves on a rainbow to bathe. A man, who would become the first Sultan, saw this happen and took one of those scarves. When it was time for the angels to leave, only two of them had scarves, so the youngest one was left behind. This young Angel married, and I’m assuming was forced to marry this man, who then became the sultan, and she became the co-ruler with him. Now every sultan needs to come and bathe in this water before they can rule properly and be blessed. To protect the source, they moved the palace here.

After the Palace Museum, we headed to Oranje Fort. This Fort was built during the spice trade with the Dutch as a safety measure. Spices like clove and ginger were currency back in the day and needed to be guarded like a bank.

From the Fort, we went to the traditional market. Here we walked through the tents and buildings, and saw locals selling all sorts of food items as well as everyday goods. There are sections for fruit and vegetables, fish, and other spices. Everyone was very friendly and wanted to be in pictures. Take a picture of me was commonly heard.

After walking through the market we made our way to a local hotel that had a buffet lunch of traditional foods. Here we got to try a variety of dishes and most were super hot.

After lunch, we headed to Toluco Fort. This was a much smaller fort that overlooks the coast on a hill. Here you also have a good view of the city. This Fort also used to have a pathway leading down the hill to the coast, but that has been closed off.

One of the things that you notice right away is that this island is basically a volcano. Gamalama volcano is a very active volcano, with thousands of events a year. Because of this, igneous rocks are quite common, and there is a park called Batu Angus Eco Park that has many of these rocks on display, from where they landed after being thrown from the volcano.

Our second last stop was further out from town and was the Sulamarah beach. This is a black sand beach that is great for swimming. There were several very large trees in the area, and the birds made a camphony of sound overhead.

Our last stop was Tolire Lake. This is another lake that has a horrific backstory to it. The main lake that we went to represents a father and his daughter is a smaller lake close by. Both of them were punished by the gods for having an incestuous relationship. The lakes are deep down in holes that had opened up, probably during an earthquake, and there are apparently crocodiles down there. Now I don’t know if they really are or if that’s just part of the legend, and the villagers who were caught up in this punishment, because they knew about this relationship, are the crocodiles.

This lake was halfway around the island, and you can circle the entire thing. Our ride went back the same way we came because our guide said on the south side, the road is windy and hilly.

We made it back towards the port area, where we made a quick stop to take pictures of the Ternate sign.

We had about one hour before we were supposed to be back on the boat. Sadly, one of our residents was 1 1/2 hours late. He had taken his bike out and he rode around the island, but overestimated his abilities and underestimated how long it would take him. We have three sea days coming up until we get to Micronesia So our timeline wasn’t that messed up but I don’t know if he’ll be charged because all of those workers had to work overtime to get him on board.

Ship Tea

Want to hear some ship drama? This week, we have 3 major dramas on board, so far. We’ve been calling them Fuzzgate, Watermelon Gate, and Crotchgate. As you can imagine they are ridiculous fights over stupid things.

The drama. It’s like living in a really small town, and everybody gets on each other’s nerves.