The joys of holidaying and needlessness of valid travel documents

Sooookey! We are now ready to leave Bali soon. In fact, officially we have already left Bali some days ago. We have spent more than a week her vacationing. Actually vacationing. We have surfed and drunk beers. Taken time off the boat, staying at a cheap hotel and taken in some hard-core western holiday-culture. We met up again with Joachim who left us in Ambon. We actually met him at sea when his chartered snorkelling-boat stumbled across us as we motorsailed 5 hours out from Benoa. Joachim showed us all the cheesy bars were the swedes and norwegians hang out. But now it's all over and we'll soon head back out to sea. The plan is to make it up to Singapore, maybe stopping a few places on the way. This is of course not kosher since we've already cleared out of Indonesia and the only place to clear in is in Singapore, but what the helioscope; we haven't had proper valid papers for the last two months anyway.

The trip here was sweet. Nice weather for most of the time, calm seas, weak yet steady winds apart for two nights with heavy blows. In the morning of the last one we entered the Lombok Strait which leads to Benoa, where we are now. As dawn arrived we found ourself surrounded by a few hundred (seriously!) local sailing fishing boats with nets and lines out. This made for some interesting navigation for a few hours.

As to our change of plans: We have for different reasons decided NOT to cross over to the Maldives from Bali, now in September, but instead head up to Thailand via Malaysia and Singapore and cross the Indian Ocean as soon as it is safe again in late December. From here the journey will go as planned (maybe and hopefully), only a bit delayed. This means that we will maybe have to stress it a bit after leaving Thailand, but hopefully not toooooo much. On the other hand it also means that we have plenty of time to see Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand where we are hoping to get some climbing done in Krabi.

Some of you dear readers have been asking for more pictures. The rest of you have not been complaining about anything. To the three uncomplaining ones: Thank you for not complaining (thank you mom and dad!). To the two of you who wants more pictures: We are working on it. We have again been experiencing some troubles with our computers, looks like a virus of some kind. Also our waterproof camera seems to have shut down after I accidentally dropped it in 25 metres of water. We were able to retrieve it, and it worked for some time, but now it has given up the ghost completely. In other words; we will post more pictures, we just need to sort ourselves out first!