After we returned from our trip to Ubud on Tuesday, we spent the next few days provisioning, catching up with the many new boats that had arrived at the anchorage and waiting for our new crew member, Jenny, to arrive. We took a trip into Saranjara to the "department store" Hardy's to provision. It had 3 levels with grocery on the bottom and clothing and a kid’s play area on the upper floors. I wanted to get some light weight long sleeve tops for Elora because her skin is fair and I fear that it will get damaged top early even with the amount of "natural" type sunscreen I use on her. Meanwhile, grant took Ameliana to the big play area- ended up being about $5 and she got to play in the ball and climbing area, go in a spiny ride AND ride on her first merry -go -round! The grocery store was big and offered a wide range fruit and veg (most of which I get at local markets) and a few other things like toilet paper and long life milk. But it had NO canned vegetables at all! I just wanted corn, tomatoes and maybe mushrooms! I ended up going to the local grocery store for those items. They also had very few cracker options, whereas in Mataram on Lombok there
was a whole aisle! Oh well we can certainly make do. I had a nice couple if swims around the anchorage when the water cleared up a bit. And we set up the kiddie pool for the girls to play in because it was top hot to play on the beach some days. I definitely noticed the heat more, especially in the early morning and late afternoon when the wind died. We were making good use of the fans in the boat. Our friends on SV Scholarship and SV Chappie arrived and scouted out a good resort nearby that let outsiders use the pool for $4 - sold!
We found out that Jenny was arriving at 6am on Sunday 30th (grants b’day) so we decided to have a relaxing / celebration day on Saturday at the resort with our friends. We had a very pleasant day, nice pool, beer & food. Mark brought the yummy brownies he had made, which was great because I was keeping the homemade chocolate peanut butter cups and chocolate crackles I had made secret until birthday morning.
The kids had a great time too. The resort obviously catered to families as they had a toy area near the restaurant and a playground. Two families came to the pool in the afternoon. A Dutch family had a very energetic 2 yr old boy and a Belgian family had a 3 yr old girl and 10 month old boy! The big kids went crazy! It was very cute, they
were all holding hands and running and jumping into the pool. Playing definitely has no language barrier!! By 4 pm we knew we had to get going. We had plans to go back out for a b’day dinner, but Ameliana missed her nap and had such an active day, we decided it was best to
postpone the dinner. Grant got his favourite dinner anyway - toastie sandwiches- why bother with a fancy dinner out? The next morning, the girls woke early of course and grant discovered that his stomach was displaying symptoms of mild "Bali belly" so we skipped the big breakie I had planned and I just brought out his b’day "cake" and candles to blow out. I felt horrible because this was the first time in 14 yrs that I didn't have a present for grant - we hadn't even had a chance to make a card from the girls !- even though we said that staying at the nice resort in Ubud was his gift, I still felt bad.
Anyway, we picked up Jenny from the beach just after 6 am. She has crewed on 2 other board during the rally so she adapted quickly. She is a 20 yr old German doing her travelling stint. The girls took an instant liking to her thank goodness! She definitely had 2 little fans! I decided to take the girls back to the resort pool with the Schloarship crew and to give grant some relax time and Jenny a chance to get settled. When we got home we got ready to lift the anchor and at about 4 pm, Wandoo, Scholarship and Chappie headed out together for the overnighter to Raas Island. The sail was good, maybe a bit rolly but nothing too bad. We were all actually going too fast and had to "heave to" (basically stopping the boat) for a while so we didn't arrive in the dark! We had a mid evening visit from a pod of dolphins which was pretty cool- they came and ride the now wave for a few minutes. Scholarship arrived first and guided us in to the anchorage at about 9am. We could see a sort of sand cay to our right that looked very pretty. Shore was too far away to bother with the dinghy. We had a nice swim off the boat instead. Grants belly was still not 100% but at least he could eat, but to top it off, he had done something to his knee. It was very painful and quite hot and a bit swollen! Poor guy, the first 24 hrs of being 42 was tough!
We planned in leaving in convoy the next morning, but after some talk about the state of grants knee (getting worse) which I thought may need antibiotics (which I discovered we did not have) and a call to the friendly neighbourhood dentist on SV Scholarship to try and procure some antibiotics (which we did, thank you Dr. Mark!), we decided that it was best for grant to rest rather than tackle a 28 hr sail with a very painful knee! Instead, we decided to put the dinghy in and check out the little sand cay, which wasn't actually exposed. It was only knee deep so we anchored the dinghy and grant played with the girls while Jenny and I had a snorkel and then we swapped. There wasn't much coral at all, just grassy. But there were fish and grant found some nice shells and saw a "live" sand dollar! It looked amazing standing in this white knee deep sandy patch surrounded by turquoise clear water for miles. Of course we forgot the camera!
I decided to swim back to the boat (under 1km), I need any exercise I can get - I'm VERY out of shape! I actually saw a coral patch with way more fish around and starfish everywhere on the sandy bottom! Grant, Jenny and the girls just puttered along in the dinghy next to me. The morning seemed to go in forever because, thanks to my iPhone, we discovered that we changed time zones again - went back another hour. So by 11am both the girls were ready for lunch! Once everyone was fed and resting I had a satisfyingly productive afternoon - 2 loaves of bread baked and dinner prepped and a bit of reading. We tried to have an early night to rest up for the 28 hr sail to Bawean Island in the morning, but it was hard with the time change.
Elora decided to have a multiple wake up night and then woke at 3:30 am (body clock thinking it was 4:30!) yuck! I tried to get her to rest for another 1/2 hour but finally put her in the carrier and did the dishes and got breakfast (coffee included) made so at least we could leave at a reasonable time. Everyone was fed, dressed and ready to set sail by 7:15am. We only had to motor a short while and then happily turned off the engine and pulled up the spinnaker. Ameliana and I made daddy belated birthday craft gift- a small box with a clear panel (from a toy packaging) which we turned into an underwater ocean scene. We used sand and shells we collected on our travels, along with some beach glass, pretend sponge "coral", fish stickers and some felt sea grass and starfish. It was a bit above Ameliana’s craft level, but she did enjoy it and was very happy to tell daddy all about the scene inside when we gave it to him. Daddy was very pleased with his belated present! I still try to hold off on letting Ameliana watch a DVD despite being pretty tired (what was I thinking!?) so instead we brought out music toys and then put on a "barenaked ladies" cd for some dancing time to burn up energy- truthfully it helped me too, I was nearing the end of my tolerance rope because Elora decided to go on strike from using the potty today, which in my sleep deprived state, frustrated me to no end! Happily, lunch time finally arrived, everyone ate and then went down for a rest (with the promise of watching a wiggles cd after if she did sleep!) the boat was cruising along nicely and I got a bit of a nap with elora. We started to see more "FAD's" (fish aggregating devices, I think) or just bamboo poles with a flag on top and a log tied to it, at more frequent intervals during the afternoon. At one point, Jenny saw 2 only about 100-150m apart from Each other and thought maybe there was a net between them. To be cautious, we went around, but we don't think there was. As night fell we resigned ourselves to the fact that we may hit one. Luckily we didn't, although I doubt much damage could be done. It was a fairly uneventful night, of course elora woke often (I am also resigning myself to that pattern!) we had to start motor-sailing in the early morning and we pulled into a pretty anchorage on what looked to be very beautiful island, around 11:30 am. SV scholarship and chappie were anchored along with about 3 catamarans. Naps didn't really happen that afternoon (not surprised really) and Mark & Dylan from scholarship came over for a visit and baby playtime on deck. Oh, I discovered the other morning that my iPhone time went back an hour- because it is satellite linked, it has always changed automatically. But we didn't think that we already changed a zone! Anyway we set our watches and I prepared for 3:30-4am wake up times!! The next morning, Jenny was suffering from broken sleep and is struggling a bit with the increasing heat, so we left her to rest in the hammock while we went to shore. Grant and Ameliana played in the beach while elora and I went in search of a local market. We could see from the anchorage that they were building an airport and there was a bit of work going on with machines on the beach too. I imagine that they will improve the roads before the airport opens because they were really bad - even for walking! I don't think I saw a motorbike drive in a straight line for more than 3 metres!! We wandered down the street and was greeted with the usual enthusiastic "halos", "Pagi" (morning) and beckoning us to come over. I was surprised that there was at least 1 person in each group I stopped to speak with that had pretty good English. I was also surprised that many of the houses were very nice for indo standards. Lots of tile, gates and ornate finishings. We later learned that Bawean is where they come for the merchant marines so there is more money here. It was definitely all Muslim and I could see the Chinese influence in the people's facial features and the lighter skin tone. I was surprised to see many women with thick, light coloured face makeup on - we also saw in the shops that "skin lightening" products are very popular. I noticed that the children had the most rotten teeth I have seen yet and I imagine that with more money comes more sugary treats - but no real dentistry services available, which is a shame! Anyway, I didn't really find a market on my walk but I did buy eggs and lots of bananas (poor grant who HATES bananas!) and I enjoyed meeting the locals. It was getting very hot when I got back and we learned from a young student with good English that the big markets were in town. We went back to the boat and had lunch and got the girls down for a nap. I jumped in for a warm but refreshing swim and then got inspired to prep dinner instead of nap myself. The next day we all took the dinghy into town. We watched sv scholarship and chappie leave for the next anchorage, we chose to bypass and head straight to Billitong doing 3.5 days. I imagine we will catch up with them there. The town had a larger sized store with flour and disposable nappies (when we do longer than 2 days we go disposable cause we dont want to bother to wash while sailing if we don't have to) We got to the market and Jenny proved to be a good haggler to have around! We didn't get everything we wanted, but I am used to that now and we easily make due. Grant spoke to a guy who was an old customs agent in the island and he told us about the merchant marines and also said that it was good that we were leaving in the daylight because there was 25 miles of bamboo flags ahead!
When we got home I made hummus, peanut butter balls, pasta and bread for the passage. Jenny slaved over the hot stove and cooked a lovely dinner with fresh tofu and veggies. The poor girl was so hot by the end that I told her to eat out on deck in the fresh breeze! The next morning was a 4:15am wake up for me - damn you time change!- so I put elora in the carrier and put away the dishes from last night , made a pasta salad for dinner and got breakfast started. We were all organised and pulled up the anchor and were on our way by 7:15am for for our 3.5 day sail to Billitong.