Thursday 5 January Oasis at sea
Not the best of nights – woke up feeling cold, found temporary relief under a sarong and then later crawled into the bags, which felt instantly very warm. Somehow, a mosquito found its way in around that stage so we sprayed and ducked for cover. Apparently there is dengue fever here. We have not adjusted to mattress deprivation yet, although we were on pretty soft grass. We will have to toughen up – by the end of the Middle East trip last year we slept easily on concrete.
J did brekky with her crew and then we repacked and had a lazy walk to the jetty to catch our boat. J got a hug and kiss from her namesake from Portal (our last boat) and was then further delighted to find that we were booked on Sir Francis Drake, which she has always liked the look of. All the boats were much fuller today and we are packed in quite fully, although not uncomfortably. Predictably, a Brazilian couple placed themselves in front of us, stripped off, covered each other in sunscreen, and then engaged in a liplock. Sheesh!
I suggested to Richard that they should be hosed down, to which he replied “Why – there’s plenty for me to look at and plenty for you to look at”. In truth, they are both very shapely. At this stage we had lunch – same dish as last time but not as good. The stops were pretty much the same as last time but the final one, where the great explorer Klink lives, had a number of turtles, which drove most of the group into the (unfortunately murky) water.
People were flaunting large cameras and lens envy was rampant. Peter has a crafty little machine with a long lens that retracts back to nothing.
J was having a long chat with Dan, of mysterious origin, who plays the sax on cruise ships. He had interesting insights from the crew perspective and has been on a number of different lines. Azamara was moored in the bay again.
Jasper at back, Jenny, Tab, MJ & Sam our leader
Blue shirt Colin the truck driver, Peter standing in foreground. Stuart in red hat, Dave in green shirt and Richard in black shirt.
We tried the cheesecake from one of the carts – light and fluffy, delicious fresh lemon tang and a firm biscuit crust – simple but perfect! Everyone was captivated by the old fellow who had been swimming next to the jetty – he was just waddling up the beach to where he had parked his zimmer frame. Oooh . . did I mention . . . he was starkers?
Peter was still sporting ugly blisters from his New Year Morning trek to try and find a taxi after the fireworks. Sam was looking for him to share a taxi but he took off like a hare and walked all the way. It was my turn on cooking so I spent the next 2 hours or so hunched over the burners boiling pasta and cooking down the sauce. Quick shower, left J to sit through the marketing presentation for the activities at Bonito, and headed down the street to a shop that had wifi.
No new grandchildren yet, Aus did startlingly well at the cricket (Clark 334 not out), no other remarkable news. I had forgotten to slop on repellent so my legs were being butchered by mosquitoes. Then it started raining, building up to a good downpour by the time I got back to camp. J had put the stuff back in the tent, which felt hot at first. Despite spraying, we soon found ourselves getting persistently eaten. Hiding in the bags seemed to solve that. The group were making a bit of noise, the doofdoof truck seemed to park right next to us for some time, and we were flanked by snorers on both sides. It felt as though we didn’t get much sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment