Sunday 7 December – off to Friwin island

We had a busy morning going into town to do a few chores. We had to pick up Rowan’s BCD from the dive shop, we left it to be repaired the first time we came to Waisai. Of course it was closed when we arrived, we headed into town to find a duvet cover as the sheet on my awning is already shredded from the elements. the sun damage on everything is incredible. It was a miracle we found some bedding in a Chinese shop, as google translate was no help. I just spotted a couple of nasty looking packs of bedding. They cost £10 and looked perfect so I bought two. On our way back to the dive shop, I decided to unpack the duvets to get rid of all the packaging and discovered that I had bought bottom fitted sheets and pillow cases not a cover. Thinking about it duvets are certainly not needed here. We got the BCD and returned to the duvet shop,I swapped the one I had not opened for another garishly coloured pack that looked more like a duvet cover. I unpacked it, success it was an enormous king size duvet cover. The awning is going to get a lot more exotic! We did a quick dash back to the fruit and veg market to get a few more things. Back to the boat and we were picking up the anchor mid morning, we waved goodbye to Gary and Kim having a late breakfast.

It was only a couple of hours to the little island Friwin, it seems to be a very popular spot with yachties, it has a very good write up on the NFL app. We did put the sails up but that jinxed the wind, so it was a hot motor across. There was only one other yacht in the anchorage, so we had our pick of spots which was good. It’s a very pretty little village with loads of long boats, they are so elegantly shaped here in Raja and colourfully painted too. Mid afternoon Gary and Kim arrived on Arka, they have already spent time here, they could not decide where to go next, but obviously decided to come back here.

We had a lovely relaxing evening listening to music coming from the little village, a flute and drums wafted over the water most of the evening.