TWO WEEKS IN MIRI

Happy Birthday to Bill
Happy 60th to Judy
Well two weeks has flown by. The crew has finally finished washing every “wall” and all of the boat interior and it now looks as though clean people live there!!!! We have spent our time working on the boat, shopping, eating out and on Friday nights sundowners with all the marina crews. We had a huge windstorm (gusting 40 knots) last week at 5am and again this morning and its still blowing. I had patched our shade cover after the last storm but the skipper wasn’t keen to take it down this morning and it tore – so down it came. The skipper had been keen to put a new one up (we have spares) so that could have had something to do with it!!! We have discovered big mangos – they are the size of a pawpaw and its unbelievable how many different kinds of bananas there are. We found some last week we have never seen before – like little pregnant ones – very unusual but they all taste like bananas except the smaller ones are a little sweeter. We ride our bikes to the edge of town and leave them locked up there. We have applied for our CAIT which will allow us to take the boat through Indonesia – we should have it by around 14th July all going well. The skipper has had the sewing machine out making covers for the new water jerries we bought in the Philippines. We have been trying to get the canvas man to come down to look at our cushions but so far he hasn’t turned up. The skipper was talking at the front of our boat the other day and the other skipper noticed a stress fracture in the stainless which holds the forward head sail stay. How lucky was that so our skipper has designed a stronger one and it is currently being made by the stainless man – we will pick it up on Monday. The anchor has gone off to get galvanised. We are waiting to see how others anchor chains come back before we decide to get ours done. The skipper has got out 100 metres of rope and the other anchor so we can anchor in deep water if we have to. Cilantro had a fright the other night. James woke to a furry thing against his face and being licked! He knew it wasn’t Sandra so they jumped up and there was a black and white cat in their bed!! At least it wasn’t a rat! Anyway thats about it for now.

Would love to hear from Rosie. And all our love to Winston and Maureen. And we hope the Tasmanians haven’t turned to ice!!

Take care
Dell and Peter