Tuesday 2^nd April

We sadly said goodbye to new friends at the marina today and enjoyed dinner last night with the crews from Sea Glass and Muscat who we said goodbye to until we meet again. The girls were very happy with marina life but after nearly three weeks we have enjoyed a swim in the sea and a motor down the coast to Palau Tiga.

Willow

We went to the animal zoo and we rode an elephant. It was so much fun and it felt bumpy when it went through the gooey mud. We saw a small black Sun Bear and it looked like it was wearing a necklace because its fur was a mustard colour on its chest. It was running around and it was lying on its back chewing on a brown stick.

Easter Bunny came and gave us some chocolate bars and left a little bowl of white and brown Easter eggs on our beds. We went to Kids Club and had an egg hunt and a colouring competition and I won a night light for a prize.

Phoebe

At the animal park we saw the otter splashing in the brown dirty water, the baby Orangutan drinking from its mother’s saggy nipple and the Malaysian Tiger resting under the shady bamboo.

Last night we enjoyed going out for dinner with Sea Glass and Muscat as we won’t see them for quite some time. Hatty, Willow and I played with the Sea Glass boys on the wet playground and liked sitting under the round covered sofas playing kings and queens. We ate delicious melted cheesy pizzas while colouring in pictures and watching the orangey, pink sunset set behind the purple clouds.

Hatty

At the zoo we happily watched the big grey Pygmy Elephants stomping around. There were three baby elephants looking like boys wrestling in a playground, swishing their tails into the mud, sloshing it over themselves, playing in the water and play fighting. We wanted to cuddle the baby Orangutan which was eating little bits of grass and comfortably lounging in a hole under a tree.

On Easter Sunday as I woke up I found a bowl of small chocolate eggs on my step. Before breakfast we hunted for Easter eggs but instead we found chocolate bars. I wore my new pink dress with silver sequins after having a swim in the pool.

Friday 5^th April

Palau Tiga (05:43.156N 115:39.523E) is an island pushed up only 125 years ago. Its highlight was definitely the mud volcanoes, globing pools of thick mud we submerged in. It was the most amazing feeling floating in mud and not touching the bottom. Steps helped enter the pool and ropes to move us through the mud. Phoebe liked the feeling of not being able to touch the bottom but still standing upright. Hatty felt it was like standing in a baby bouncer, bouncing up and down but not touching the ground. Willow liked swinging around in the mud on the ropes.

We enjoyed meeting Steve and Pat from Silver Tern, both biologists so very informed about nature. We visited Snake Island with them, a haven for the highly venomous black and white Sea Kate that comes to breed and socialise on the island but otherwise spends its time at sea. Interesting to see them wrapped together in the rocks, the female bigger and plainer than the beautiful striped male! Huge Sea Eagles circled overhead and a large school of bait fish clustered under the jetty following the leader and making beautiful patterns in the clear, sparkling water.

A play on the beach at a small sand cay nearby was fun, unfortunately as usual, littered with plastic bottles. Salps in the water were fascinating. They are a simple organism in the same phylum as us and breed in a matter of weeks when the water is nutrient rich. Non stinging, they clump in rows and being clear we enjoyed being able to see the next generation inside them and the small creatures that live within.