Friday 10 October – exploring Biak

We woke up to a beautiful sunny day, it had to be a laundry morning, calm and sunny, we were able to get our mountain of laundry washed and dried in the morning. Arka with Gary and Kim arrived last night, they couldn’t go ashore until they are checked in today. Claudette arrived by 10am and they all checked in at midday with Ahmed’s crew. So good to have everyone safely here, Claudette hit a big tree log, but thankfully only did a glancing blow but gave her a big fright. More scarily she got a palm frond around her propeller, she managed to get her GoPro down to get a photo of it, luckily she was able to slow dow, turn and dislodge it. Phew it would be scary if she had to dive down to dislodge it all on her own at sea! She said she has to talk herself calm, usually with a couple of cups of tea! A relief to have everyone here safely.

Midday we went into town, it appears there are no taxis, so the resort bus dropped us off at the fresh food market. We stocked up on some delicious bits and pieces, including lots of garlic, ginger, turmeric, curry leaves, lemon grass, chillies, and a few things that we have no idea what they are but look interesting. The fish market was impressive too, with some nice looking fish, big squid and then extremely sadly, turtle meat next to its head. I had to leave at that point, Rowan missed it.

It is a pretty small town with one main street, that leads to the market at the water’s edge. We walked the other direction and it wasn’t long before we were at the fancy mall again. We had read about the coffee shop upstairs and went to have a look, on the way we passed a hairdresser, we both decided to have our hair cut. There were no other customers and about 6 staff who all came to take part in the action, I opted for a head massage before the hair cut, which was really amazing. They massage with such gusto, my head neck and shoulders have never been so pummelled before. Rowan in the meantime was persuaded to have a pedicure, this was fortuitous as Rowan had a splinter at the tip of his toe which we had not been able to get out and was troubling him in his shoes. The ladies were given the mission to get it out, with much laughter and 4 people working on him there was great jubilation when they finally got the splinter out! They really worked miracles on Rowan’s feet, the pile of dead skin off his feet was incredible! I had a foot massage while my hair was being cut, it was so invigorating but almost too painful at times on my legs. There was only one man and he did the hair cutting. We managed to while away a couple of hours there being pampered, eternally grateful for google translate which enabled Rowan to get his splinter removed. It cost us just under 800 000 Rupiah which is £36, for both of us for a couple of hours, and this I’m sure is the smartest place in town.

We met up with our buddy boaters at the supermarket and caught a lift back in the bus with them. They had all had a successful entry into the country. Rowan had arranged to go out for supper with everyone including the Germans, Ahmed and his wife and the South African couple staying at the resort. It was a quick turnaround back at the boat, just long enough to have a sunset drink as we will not get a drink with supper. We went in the bus to an old military hangar that has been converted into a massive food court. The South African couple were fascinating, an Indian couple from Kwa Zulu Natal who had been working in Johannesburg. He had retired from work, his wife had wanted to continue teaching but they wanted to travel too, so they decide to teach in remote areas of the world. She taught at an international school in Myanmar for a year which they really enjoyed, sadly the school closed down, and they returned to South Africa. She spotted a teaching job in this remote mining town in Indonesia that has an international school and got the job. The school is in a mining town above 2000m high, they fly to some remote place and have a 3 hour bus journey to get to the town, which is controlled access because of the mine. They have been there since January, he is a house husband, who loves cooking and exercising, so it suits them perfectly, they are loving it there. Their two kids are at University in Johannesburg and her mother looks after their house there. Apparently this is the most remote International school in the world, googling it, it certainly looks like it. What an experience.

The food court meant selecting from the various stalls again and eating centrally under fairy lights. It was a little overwhelming choosing, and after our mediocre selection last night we asked Julia, Ahmed’s wife to order for all of us. She recommended an avocado drink which I had that I was gobsmacked to see came with dark chocolate in it, surprisingly it was absolutely delicious! We had many spicy dishes of chicken, fish, delicious veg and fried potatoes. It was all very tasty and for £4.50 a head was unbelievably cheap. The Germans were quite hard work to talk to, she doesn’t speak fluent english so struggles a bit. They are part of the German crowd that believed they would be killed in PNG, so sailed the whole way past without stopping. No wonder they are here at Biak for weeks. Claudette did well to stay awake so long, she was absolutely exhausted by the time we dropped her off.