Monday 14th at 1700

We spent a couple of days in Sinabong—provisioning, laundry, meeting Michele Moran at the airport and dealing with the officials to sign Michele on as crew. Not a great place, and we left Simeulue on Saturday

to sail the 30 miles south to Pulau Lasia, where we have been for the last couple of days. This is another beautiful anchorage—blue and very clear sea; a nice long beach at the end of the bay with palm

trees and jungle behind; and a beautiful coral garden teeming with interesting fish at the western end of the bay—and good coral at the eastern. Deserted apart from a couple of fishermen. So we’ve been

chilling, snorkelling, swimming; reading; eating and sleeping.

But also a bit of work! The last—and longest—piece of hose used by Chill to fit our watermaker in Phuket started to leak and I replaced it this morning with proper 12 BAR hose. So I’ve now replaced all of the

plumbing of the watermaker done by Chill. I had used all my 12 BAR hose for the first 2 repairs and in anticipation of the rest failing had asked Michele to bring some more hose from Germany—which she did. Impossible

to get here—so we got it just in time!

Plan is to leave tomorrow and sail to the Banyak Islands—probably Pulau Bangkaru—before we head down to Pulau Nias, the next big island of this island chain off the west coast of Sumatra.