Nongsa Point – update

 

A happy boat has clean and functional toilet(s). Now we are once again a happy boat. Half day maintenance of our two toilets and we are back in business. Strange how I (Peter) am able to postpone this regular ( 6 month / annual) dirty job when it is so rewarding to have it completed. Enough about ugly jobs – until next time!

After a week, besides laundry, doing a bit of walking, using a shuttle to go to “down town” (Nagoya) of Bantam and hiring a lightweight motorbike to check out the countryside. Riding a moto is very convenient, and what 99 % of natives do. But, it is not for the faint hearted. To go with the flow means 100 kmh and still being by passed by big crowds of other (bigger) bikes, taxis, trucks, etc. Well, we survived and got our objective for the days fixed – register a new sim card so we get internet access. In case we have not mentioned it already – internet has gone from zero (San Blas / Panama) to super slow (mid Pacific) to fast and cheap (west Pacific and beyond). A nice benchmark was our last deal of 11 GB for the cost of USD 6 in Timor, Indonesia. Hard to beat anywhere in Europe, at least as a transient tourist.

Thursday we are off to Singapore. Funny how things work out re bureaucracy. Indonesia, we thought was a world leader in complex paperwork and bureaucracy, turned out to be a ” piece of cake”. Singapore, being at least top ten in e-based services rankings, it seems is becoming our biggest hurdle in “red tape” since Galapagos. Mandatory agent (doing what?), endless forms and documents (eg Bill of Sale – how clever/needed is that if you have a yacht registration, insurance etc). The common denominator having crossed 3/4 of the planet is that x-British colonies do stick out as being the most cumbersome when it comes to formalities. No wonder Brexit seems to be a nightmare… Sorry – should avoid politics and stick to cute pics of monkeys… Maybe next blog update 🙂