THE LAST TEABAG

29 May 2024

There it is, the last Extra Strong Breakfast Tea Bag.  Before leaving New Zealand I took a good stock on board and then managed to top up my stock in Australia.  The last couple of months I have been on rations and today, early morning, I enjoyed the last Bag.  Some people drink coffee to get going in the morning, but for me it’s a strong tea with milk and honey that does the trick. 

I have been trying to find a substitute in Indonesia with limited success, the best I have found is Sosro Heritage Black Tea, a good tea, grown in Java, that will keep me balanced until I can get a restock of the real stuff.

The anchorage at Belitung is good but subject to a bit of swell and the winds swirling around the top of Belitung.  Big turtles regularly swim around the boat and seem happy here despite the boat traffic. It seems to rain here a lot as well, often massive showers in the afternoon and evening with lightening and thunder as the warm air flows over the island and deposits rain at the NE end where I am anchored.

The beaches here are pure powdery sand and the cleanest I have seen so far in Indonesia.  There is not much pollution here and the villages ashore are also very clean and mostly free of the plastic pollution you see in many other places.  Most interesting here are the rock formations, huge rocks and boulders strewn about the place all worn smooth by the weather. 

One of the small islands is called Garuda Island due the rock perched on the top looking like the Garuda bird logo of the Indonesian National Airline.

Drinks, snacks and cold beer can be found on the small island next to garuda rock, a very popular place for the tourists.  Most of the tourists here are local Indonesian, mainly from Jakarta it seems.  The Warungs on the island have plastic bins with baby turtles swimming around in them.  I am not sure but it seems that for a small price you can release them into the sea.  There is both a positive and negative in that idea.

At the anchorage on board Truce repairs are ongoing to the spinnaker pole as stress cracks were appearing again.  I have applied epoxy and glass fiber wrapped around the pole in the areas showing stress, soon the pole will be more repairs than original  pole. It appears that once carbon fiber is compromised it affects the whole structure.

Then it was the turn of the water maker.  The needle valve on the water maker has been playing up and not holding a constant pressure. I decided to change it out for a new one that I managed to find online in Indonesia.  Unfortunately there is a mix up with the thread.  On the box it says NPT thread but the valve is actually NPTF thread.  It should work but when I fitted it there were big leaks even before any pressure was on the system.  I then put the old valve back in place but now it seems that valve wont work properly anymore.  Oh, what stress, working in tight spaces in a hot climate is not fun!  Now I am trying to get another NPT valve and hope it will fit, otherwise I will be without a water maker and my nice cool showers will be less frequent.

There are a couple of other cruising boats here.  One I have met before in Lombok and the other i met at the island of Bawean.  Nice to have other cruisers around to have a social with and continue life’s education.

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