After the big Back to My Roots festival, we had an afternoon of rest, and got underway just before dark to sail back to Santo. This time the destination was Oyster Island Resort, which cannot be entered at night. So our plan was to sail as slowly as we could, to cover the 70 miles and arrive after sun-up. This worked out fine. The resort is beautiful and offers good food and laundry services and showers and live music and garbage removal and wifi. All appreciated.

But I found I couldn’t upload photos via the wifi, so Bob and I decided to head into town. We were told it was a 20 minute drive. After a short walk to the main road we put out our thumbs, and the first vehicle to approach was a flatbed truck with half a dozen young men on the back yelling to the driver, “Stop! Stop! Pick them up!” The back of the truck was loaded with huge bags of copra, plus there was about half a butchered calf and a couple of plucked birds, and feathers blowing about. Plus some coconuts, which they proceeded to open for us with their machetes as we bounced down the road. It was a wild and fun ride, and more than 20 minutes because the truck could barely make it up the hills.

Our mission was safely completed, the blog updated. Next day we were scheduled to do a tour, but I am coming down with a cold — I slept all day. I’m glad I did. My first day of solid rest in a long time, and the others came back raving about the beautiful tour, but completely exhausted. I’m not looking forward to dealing with a cold on our passage to Australia, but oh well…

We depart tomorrow. This afternoon Luc gives us our sailing instructions and then we have a farewell dinner. In the morning Luc takes the skippers to clear out with the authorities, and takes the crews to a market for provisions. Expected passage time is about 7 days. Much anticipation about Australia…a major milestone…hauling the boat for new paint…lots of repairs…Hallie coming…Jesse coming…going exploring in the Northern Territories…Bill leaving…Bob leaving…Tim returning…sailing with Jesse…Great Barrier Reef…Torres Strait…and then…but no, I can’t think ahead to Indonesia just yet… Still a lot to be done just to get underway by tomorrow.