18th September - Blues Night at Medana Marina - depart Lombok - Gili Air

Wednesday 18^th September

We have left our lovely Medana Bay marina, and we are still in sight of beautiful Lombok.

We haven’t come very far – just to Gili Air*, a very popular little party PARTY island, one of three Gilis, off the coast of Lombok.

It does all look very pretty and festive.

But…we are rocking and rolling on what is fortunately a big solid double mooring.  There are tempting looking reefs quite close to the boat but…I am too scared to get into the water.  There are short, choppy waves, a lot of wind, and what looks to be a strong and lively current.  Scary!  There are other yachts around us, and I have been watching yachties struggling in to shore, and back to their boats, in their dinghies, tossing around madly on the waves.

This was Pete yesterday, scrubbing the waterline of 2XS.  This was the most pleasant of the scrubbing/lugging options.  The boat is now just beautiful; you could, if you wanted, perform a surgical operation in the cockpit, that is how clean and shiny it all is.

(Little Lombokpots for no reason other than - how cute are they!)

We did stop work at about three, and had a bit of a rest for an hour or so until our friends from Settlement (Andrew and Sue) and Pedoja (Don and Tanya) started arriving from their newly-arrived boats anchored in the bay.

(Random Lombok foliage...so pretty!)

The Blues Night party at the marina restaurant was just great.  There must have been at least 80 yachties there, all in party mood.  The band was great – these Indonesian boys belted out music certain to please our particular age group, bless them.  The Rolling Stones featured heavily…and they did it all with verve, gusto and talent. 

I danced all night, barefoot in the warm grey sand.  There were rarely less than 50 up on the dance floor...

This is a photo of some of our friends, mostly not in the average Rally age group.  I am including it so you can see the branch overhanging our table, behind this group… Captain Pete was very keen to dance early in the evening.  He was very lively and full of clever tricky steps…one of them involved swinging from this very branch and leaping, orangutang-like, in my (very surprised) arms.  I went to say goodbye to our friend Jan, from Avanta, this morning (he is pictured with our younger friends in the above photo.)  He came out to wish me fair winds etc but what he REALLY wanted to talk about was Pete’s spectacular Tarzan/Jane dancing style.

(A random temple statue, wearing his yin/yang skirt)

Alas Pete is not very Tarzan-like today… He is quite ill and is now downstairs, fast asleep.  Which is a GOOD thing.  NOT that he is ill but that he is actually giving in and taking to his bed.  Lots of our friends have been violently ill recently, with stomach bug things.  Not sure if that is Pete’s exact problem but…we will see after he has had a nice long sleep…

* Air, in Bahasa Indonesian, means...water...