Tuesday 17 March – relaxing

We head back north tomorrow to get back to the marina to start packing up the boat and dropping off Grant and Judith. I opted for time at the resort pool while the others went snorkelling. The water clarity is not great at the moment and it seems to be the season for loads of rubbish in the area, so many plastic bags under the water, it is a tragedy. With my ears being very susceptible to infections even though I wear ear plugs I am particularly cautious. Very sad for Grant and Judith that the visibility is not great but they still seemed to enjoy it, we have been spoilt in Raja Ampat. I had a good swim in the pool, a lot better than the water around our mooring ball. I also had a wonderful hour long massage on their massage bed on the beach under big trees in lovely deep shade. It was absolutely blissful as my massage lady did not try and get rid of the knots in my shoulders! My last massage even though I asked for medium strength gave my shoulders such pummelling it was quite sore.

The others joined me for the afternoon lying on the resort beds on the beach under the big shady trees. So much cooler than on the boat. It was very relaxing. We headed back to PolePole for late afternoon tea and a shower before heading out for supper. We had another good meal at the Nautilus restaurant, our very sweet waitress was pleased to see us back and very chatty. She recalled our complete order from yesterday which was pretty impressive. It definitely is the fullest restaurant we have been to so far. It was another very hot night, we ended the night with some star gazing, it was a clear cloudless night.