Today we sailed out of Australian waters and are now in Indonesia/Timor Leste. We land in Timor Leste tomorrow, and today we learnt some interesting facts about the third newest nation in the world. Only Montenegro and South Sudan are newer. It is also one of the poorest nations in the world. It was a Portuguese colony that suffered a postcolonial struggle to become independent from Indonesia. Quite unreasonably I feel I should write to my MP for an explanation as to why I have to pay a $55 visa fee, while almost everywhere else in Europe is exempt.
We have had a great day today, after a late breakfast we talked to the Ventures Team, these are the knowledgeable experts who are on the ship. They are so willing to impart their considerable knowledge. They also reassured Marion that she would enjoy the zodiac trip to the beach tomorrow. There was then a caviar party where unfortunately even though it was before midday Marion and I drank a little too much. I think it was the strawberry daiquiri that did it. We and the other teams were thus well lubricated for trivia, how was it than one of our team knew the exact date that Disneyland opened?
We had and agreeable lunch with an Australian couple, he is a former Cathay pilot who regaled us with several “tall” tales, including the one where the pilot hung a pair of fluffy dice in the windscreen of a 747. After the Timor lecture there was a classical concert on deck, very relaxing. I then cleared the swimming pool by doing aqua-robics; the water temperature was just less than 90 degrees.
Finally we watched the sun go down and then had a lovely dinner. We are ready for Timor Leste tomorrow.
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