In the end Fergs & I spent 11 nights at our coral atoll retreat. About three years of a Japanese salaryman's annual holidays! And it was a very peaceful time.
You might wonder how we occupied ourselves. I wonder that too.
But we did.
Routines help. 0555 Coffee 0600 ABC news 0610 porridge 0618 purging of the bowels etc etc
Did some varnishing - that takes time - and also some reading.
Fergs enjoyed our island escapades. He's not quite as good at crabbing as he used to be - he missed one that was bigger than my hand - but his nose is just as sensitive to scraps as it ever was. Picnickers came to our island occasionally.
There were local fishermen, mostly in small canoes.
They always gave a friendly wave, but never troubled us.
One open longboat netting boat - not very big - came alongside for a nosy. They had about 15 guys on board, hardly room to move.
One old chap jumped aboard to look, but luckily the rest didn't follow.
Even though the captain gave his name as Rambo, they weren't in any way threatening. One guy did hold up an empty fuel canister in a hopeful way to me, but I just said "Do I look like Father Christmas?"
The mornings were always sunny, but often it clouded over ominously in the afternoon, but never amounted to anything.
The light was often amazing. I loved watching it play on the backdrop of the hills behind Teluk Sawai (where we dropped Jack off), which were over 3000m.
Bird watching very rewarding too.
Our dolphin pod visited us on 5 separate days, that I noticed.
And every evening at 1745 we sat at the southern point of the island for Bat Patrol - the nightly departure to the mainland, where - my research tells me - they may have eaten twice their body weight every night.
Look, I'm not claiming that sitting in a coral lagoon is the most useful way to spend your life.
But it's quite pleasant, and not doing anyone any harm.