Christmas at Nai Harn

We left the Rebak "cruisers' retirement village" on Sunday 18/12 via Telaga for check-out, fuel and wine.  Despite a fuel booking for 280 litres at 1500 we got to the fuel dock at the appointed time to find the tank was empty.  This was actually convenient as we could leave Sea Bunny on the dock while visiting harbourmaster, customs (not there but harbourmaster was moonlighting as customs and gave us our clearance) and immigration.  After the formalities we were able to take the RIB over to the wine shop before the tanks were refilled and diesel became available about 1800. 

A quick trip up, stopping overnight at Ko Rok, got us to Panwa Bali, opposite Ao Chalong, on Tuesday in time for dinner ashore with Amoenitas. Wednesday entailed a visit across the bay to Ao Chalong to check in.  The new computerised system overlaid on top of the paperwork does not yet seem to offer any streamlining of the procedures, stacks of paper being printed out and signed.  We still had to provide paper copies of the boat's registration document ans skipper's passport to each of immigration, customs and port control, despite having uploaded it.

Back at Panwa Bali it was easy to get a taxi into the Central Festival shopping centre for last minute Christmas supplies - no tonic though - apparently this shortage is island-wide after the floods north.  Too many expats downing  their Christmas G&Ts.

After successful emergency troubleshooting on the genset it was a short sail around to Nai Harn to meet up with the advance guard of our Christmas group - MV Mandella II and SV Catcha Star were already anchored in the NE corner of the bay  - Catcha Star, with a new paint job, being identified by her status as a "dangerous target" on AIS.

A trip ashore to leave laundry resulted in a partly swamped dinghy on leaving - par for the course here.

There is not the crowded bay chocka full of boats that there was 2 years ago.  The Christmas Eve buffet at the Ao Sane restaurant was still very good. The swell had built up on the beach there too, resulting in a slightly wet landing from Mandella II's large "tinny" and a very wet trip back to the boats at the end of the evening - thanks Peter.

After Christmas lunch

Christmas Day dawned with 20-25 knots of offshore wind in the anchorage.  The wind generators were working hard!  The gustiness caused a modification to the planned mobile lunch (one course on each of several boats) and the group from 5 boats (Mandella II, Catcha Star, Crystal Blues, Sandy and Sea Bunny) congregated on Mandella II at 1200 for the gargantuan Christmas feast, leaving around 1800. On most boats no more food or drink was required until Boxing Day.  Phone calls to the UK via Skype were not successful but we got the two boys via mobile.

Boxing Day saw the wind continuing and swell on the main beach preventing a dry landing to collect our laundry, we had to walk round from Ao Sane on the north of the bay - we needed the exercise anyway but failed to realise that we had lost a large dinghy wheel -how careless, now presumably on its way to Sumatra.

"Morning tea", as Australians call a mid-morning coffee break (morning smoko in NZ or elevenses when we were young in the UK) was back on Mandella, with mincepies, cake and stollen.  Planned lunch ashore was cancelled due to the wave break on the beach and a scratch lunch was put together.

Boxing Day concluded with talking to our daughter, dinner and admiration of the new sound system on Crystal Blues.