My Favourite Things

Other than mittens, kittens and brown paper parcels tied up with string, these are a few of my favourite things (in no particular order):

1) Sending a message in a bottle which I still hope we'll hear back from, one day twenty years from now. We wrote the note in 4 languages (to increase our chances of it being found and understood. Italian, Greek, English and a poorly translated Indonesian, that probably means something like: "You bottle look. Email deliver. Before thanks you." I did try though.)

2) Something the inner child (which is not kept so inner) had wanted to do for ages: Build a den on the deck from all our scarves, blankets, flags etc and spend the night camped out there. Or as much as I could manage before I got too cold! The rest of Team GB managed admirably though.

Rise and shine! Delina and Ronnie

3) The Indian festival of Holi - a little late and a lot more naked than the original. Partying on the beach with Laura, Rosie and Brian.










4) Another example of being in the right place at the right time: Pulau Derawan, where we wandered around the sandy roads and found ourselves in a hotel which had discovered turtle hatchlings in their grounds. Emily, Siem, Lo and I managed to convince them to let us help with the release.

In the same night we also rescued a beautiful moth that had been attracted by the light in a shop and was damaging itself flying into the walls. This was also our first meal on shore, in what felt like weeks! Actually, maybe it was just the one.

It was unfortunate we didn't get to stay longer at Derawan - it is a beautiful island with well maintained moorings and plenty of dive sites on the surrounding islands. I will hopefully come back some day.  

5) Koh Hong - which must be one of the most perfect destinations in the world for early morning beach yoga - after kayaking with Rosie through an 800m cave entrance to the hidden lagoon in the centre. Completely sheltered by the surrounding karst mountains it was a blissful experience to be there before the hordes.


6) Watching Rachel's incredible fire stick dance on the beach at Gili Air.

Miss Rachel

7) The Great British Beach clean-up! Unfortunately no pictures of this back-breaking, feet-scorching work, in which we cleared half of the long stretch of beach of discarded flipflops, lighters, plastic cups, bottles, lightbulbs, toothbrushes and many other assorted types of junk. Well done Delina, Kateface and Ronnie!

8) Becoming proficient at various arts and crafts - carving coconut jewellery, henna and making batik (and all the tidying up afterwards!) Thanks to all the people that let me practise henna on them :-)

One of my first attempts at Batik, turned into a cushion!



9)Sail Komodo. Getting involved in this rally was great fun and an opportunity to dress up for once! We went to a dinner with the President of Indonesia, plus all the other local bigwigs.



Being part of a sail pass during Sail Komodo.



10) Owning part of an aeroplane thanks to a big adventure in Bali with a nutty Italian, Laura!


On the navy boat with our new friends.




The Lion Air jet wreckage at Bali

These are just a few examples of all the boat-related activites we've done in the last six months. Obviously I haven't included any diving otherwise I'd still be writing now.