Friday 4 September 2015

Following arrival at Sea World (where everyone has gone instead of Maumere), dragging 3 times while trying to set Rocna anchor and finally ending up in 35 meters (115 feet) of water with all chain deployed, we hustled to get new paperwork (brought by another cruiser from organizer who, as you may recall if reading this balderdash along, is elsewhere) filled in and stamped (which previously mentioned cruiser had purchased for everyone) so as to catch 1400 van to immigration for delivery as soon as possible as it takes 3 or 4 days, at best, for them to complete and the weekend was approaching (the foregoing could have been done more logically with 3 sentences but then it might have been easy to read, killing all the fun). Finally, by Friday afternoon, a smattering of visa renewals were returned to crews who had been waiting over a week. Driver then took us to an ATM, a wine shop and back to happy hour where we endeavored happy for appreciably more than an hour.

A sore throat, which had been evident, but unobtrusive, for 3 days finally blossomed, so half of crew remained aboard doing absolutely nothing useful all day today except lay about reading his books while remainder accompanied several friends to a tech school of very attentive and inquisitive late teeners, explored the first supermarket since New Cal, took dirty clothes to laundry and purchased 80 liters of diesel among other things, having an even more enjoyable time.

Wednesday

Fine, now it's Wednesday and since subjecting anyone to a comprehensive account of last 5 days would be wicked a quick summary follows. Spent last 2 of them driving to and climbing Mount Kelimutu to see the 3 color lakes - adjacent calderas with highly mineralized water. The white one was really cool. One of us still has respiratory distress - spiked to 40.5 degrees last night. The rest of crew is having difficulty a bit lower - seems candlenuts, sold as Macadamias, may have been at fault. One passport came Monday and the other was delivered at 1400, about 3 seconds before anchor started up even though unable to make closest designated anchorage. Now hooked up several miles offshore on a reef with what appears to be healthy coral. Please fill in exciting details from your imagination. For some of you, we will have had more fun than for others.

Jack