Saturday 13 December – busy, busy day

We have managed to clear the two cabins of the huge amount of bits and pieces, in preparation for the kids arrival. Dilah, the amazing cleaner arrived at 8am to give the boat a thorough clean, she is amazing, so thorough and fast! 9am the troupe of muscle men arrived by boat to sort the anchor out. They came up with a better plan, to release all the chain and untie it from the boat, untangle it and tie it back on, it did mean a couple of lads had to dive on the anchor, pick it up and reset it where it should be. Wix was here too, it all went so smoothly without a moment of stress, which is truly remarkable. During that time the mechanic arrived to service the engines, another super friendly obliging guy, who Rowan was thrilled with. On our last trip, Rowan had to stop the mechanic who he had got to do the servicing as he realised he really didn’t know what he was doing!

I headed into town with Nur our wonderful taxi man, who took me down all the little alleyways of the fresh produce markets, helping me pick and pay for things. The main mission was to get the delicious mangoes we got last time and avocados. The currency is crazy, the government is about to reset it as everything is in thousand’s of Rupiah, so very handy having Nur help with all the notes. He was so helpful, two supermarket stops, the chandlery and filling up the big dinghy petrol can. Nur is always smiling, nothing is too much effort, in his minimal English. While I was at the one supermarket, he quickly went and did his midday prayers. So strange the mall and supermarkets were blaring out Christmas jingle, I suppose this is a very Christian part of Indonesia. It was after 2pm when I got back. The boat still had the mechanic on board and the cleaner was going great guns. I had loads to unpack, this food has to last us long past Christmas. Finally the mechanic finished around 4pm. Our new spare water maker isn’t working, Rowan has the replacement gauge, but he could not get the faulty one off, it had been epoxied on. The Mechanic very sweetly took it to Wix’s workshop where they have a proper vice grip and tools and got it off for Rowan. What a success! Dilah went home for a late lunch and came back at 5pm with two helpers to clean the cockpit floor, the teak flooring gets so dirty. At £3 an hour they are such a bargain. She is a lovely lady and is picking Luke up from the airport when he arrives and getting him onto a private boat taxi to get him and Milly out to us. She was all done by 6pm and had done a brilliant job, such a bundle of energy in this heat.

We were exhausted, especially as it was soo hot last night we did not sleep well, at least we had a big squall this afternoon which cooled everything down for a much better night. Rowan made a tempeh dish for supper and I made a big salad, we are really bracing the local market food. We collapsed into bed, excited to be getting Phoebe on board tomorrow. She lands in Sorong at 6:30am, Nur is going to meet her and bring her to the boat.