Saturday 8 November – it feels like we’ve entered Jurassic park

We set off soon after we woke up as we know it is a difficult anchorage and something we are going to have to learn to do in Misool. The water is deep you have to drop the anchor and then put out a couple of stern lines that you have to wrap around sharp limestone rocks. Rowan had read up all about it so we are well prepared, he had bought thick hose piping to thread the ropes through for our 100m floating lines. The hosepipe is so that the rope does not get cut by the sharp limestone. Another Australian boat was there with their kids, and told us one of the only three spots was available for us. We finally saw the skyline of the islands we were heading for around lunch time. Our friends on the boat Jiyu that we met in Vanuatu were there to meet us for the night, thankfully they offered to come and help us. It was pretty nerve racking reversing into the deep gorge with coral all around. Xavier got both stern lines secured on rocks and returned to the boat for us to tie on. After getting scarily close to the coral on one side we had to pick up the anchor to reset it further away, this meant slackening our stern lines. All quite a palaver that I was very pleased to be finished with. We needed a good rest after that, especially as it is boiling hot. We were dripping buckets of sweat.

We invited Françoise and Xavier for supper, they had a friend Patrick on board who is an ex commercial pilot like Xavier. They are all from Belgium but live in Portugal these days, having lived in Dubai for 20 years. We had a good catch up, it was good to hear of their time in Australia which they really enjoyed. Rowan had invited the Australian couple for drinks, they came after feeding their kids, which was just as we were about to have supper. Everyone is running low on fresh food, we made a chicken pumpkin curry which went down well, followed by tin peaches. It is the first tins of fruit we have had to eat since starting sailing, we have always managed to get fresh fruit along the way. We miss the canoes coming out to trade here in Indonesia. We did get some coconuts yesterday but that was it.