15th-16th July - Kabui Passage - water - back to Friwin Island

15^th July 2015

00 degrees 25.437S

130 degrees 34.378E

Kabui Passage

“Homestay” water source

13.8m depth

We left Friwin Island, and, incidentally, our python friend, behind and made our way back to the Kabui Passage.  SO happy to be able to do a big tub of washing!  (The things we take for granted, in our comfy First World lives…)

The air is full of birdsong; fish are leaping; water is pouring unchecked from the downpipe.  What more could we want??

This bird sings very beautifully - but what is it?? 

In the afternoon we edged the boat right up to the little homestay constructions, being very careful not to knock them down off their slender stilts.

And then it was all about WATER!  So wonderful, being able to connect up pipes and hoses and fill those tanks!

There was a family camped out at the homestay.  Martika and Daoud with their children Noci (pronounced Nochi), Martika (jr) and something like Dante but probably NOT Dante…

They loved having us there and Noci took up very happy residence on 2XS.  She indicated to us very clearly that she was going to wave goodbye to her family – “selamat tinggal!!” and that she would be sailing away without much of a backward glance.  I took some photos, and printed them off of the family.  They wre fascinated to see themselves on paper.  I can’t imagine that Noci would have been all that pleased with her own photos… Every time I took the camera out she would scowl dreadfully; not a smile to be seen.  In real life she is lovely, with a big flashing smile. 

But having your photo taken is Serious Business!

It took a long time to fill the tanks.  A tourist boat came along and unloaded a very nice Polish family – Beate, Janos, Sonja, Kaya and – Jeremy!  Yes Jeremy, pronounced Yeremy, is a perfectly Polish name, apparently.  (Beate is an English teacher and she wanted her children to have easily pronounced names.) 

Jeremy had nearly trodden on a very pretty fat blue snake when he walked up the path behind the homestay with his father (ready with a very impressive big Canon camera, twice the size and power of mine,) so I showed them the photos of our BoatPython.  They were mightily astonished but I don’t think Beate would have welcomed a python in her kitchen…

Thursday 16^th July

We are on our way out of the Kabui Passage – off to pastures new!  Well…pastures old!  Pete is very kindly taking us back to Pulau Friwin so I can have a swim along my favourite familiar bit of reef.  And then, maybe, pastures new!