Medana Bay Marina, Pulau Lombok

We have been having a great and relaxing time here ever since we arrived over 2 weeks ago. We have needed the time to relax after the events at Kupang and the constant sailing since then.
As this is written Jim is sitting in the Sail Fish Cafe having just eaten a cheese and tomato omelette and Jean has gone with Wulan to a local kindergarten where we have donated some coloured pencils and diving goggles for the kids. It is 0930 and a light onshore wind has developed which is blowing through the cafe - just like air conditioning!! A beautiful and tranquil scene - so unlike Kupang.
We have our new dinghy which is proving very successful and is actually more robust than the old one which we have donated to the marina. They may be able to fix it to a useable extent over time.
We have been into Sengiggi a few times. There is a mini supermarket there which is reasonably well stocked - the main difficulty is working out just what it is that one is contemplating buying with most labels in Bahasa Indonesia. However, most things are fairly obvious.
We have been planning our route north west from here to Nongsa Point on Pulau Batam just south of Singapore. This is where we will exit Indonesia. In terms of Darwin - Singapore/Malaysia we are roughly half way here on Lombok with over 1200 miles to go. So, we are getting itchy feet again as we have to leave Indonesia before our visas expire at the end of October. Seems like a long time but in actual fact it isn't. The passage will be a mixture of longer overnight stretches and hopefully quite a few day sails between anchorages.
Once again Sail Indonesia is almost totally devoid of information re anchorages, etc. and we are relying on anchorage notes kindly supplied by "Kullaroo" and Keith, the Lockmaster at Tipperary Marina, before we left Darwin. Hopefully (and that's about all it can be) we have made some good choices.
This afternoon we are going to Pulau Gili Air (pronounced "eyre") for a couple of days before returning here for final provisioning and fuelling before leaving for points NW. Gili Air is only 7 miles from here. Watch this space for more fascinating stories in due course.
With lotsaluv
Jim and Jean
s.v. Tiare Taporo III
Medana bay
Lombok.

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