Tuesday 10 March – we pick up Grant and Judith

We left while it was still pretty dark, just enough light to spot the fishing boats. The wind followed us head on all the way around down to the bottom of the Sumbawa bay. We could not have timed things better, we arrived as Grant and Judith were dropped by taxi at the jetty. They have been in Bali for a few nights and flew early this morning to Sumbawa town they then had a three hour taxi ride down to the bottom of the bay to meet us. Such precision timing. We got them to buy some fresh fruit and avos on the way down, which they came laden with. We anchored at the town to pick them up but left as soon as we had them on board and moved to a little uninhabited island nearby. We are being picked up by a local boat tomorrow at 5am to go swimming with the whale sharks.

The little island we anchored off looked and felt like a bit of Africa, small scrubby trees with loads of goats and not a palm tree in sight. There were some cattle wearing bells, it was rather lovely listening to the gentle clanging of the bells while we caught up with Grant and Judith up front under the awning. Once again Grant and Judith came like sherpas, carry ing all sorts of things for us from California. Including eight of my favourite big tea cups from the American shop Crate&Barrel, I was thrilled, we have badly chipped our remaining last four. Rowan got new fuel filters for the engines which we hope will sort out the one alarm message we keep getting. They also brought all sorts of edible treats, dark chocolates and Whisky, it was like Christmas all over again. It was ferociously hot and airless in the boat, at least up front we caught a tiny breeze to cool us down. It drizzled randomly which cooled us down even further. Everyone was pretty tired after a long day, so early to bed for our 5am pick up.