We’ve definitely started to feel like this pair; deciding on what to cook these days to try and keep some variety in our lives has definitely been a challenge, but should improve now that Penang is under the Conditional MCO (Movement Control Order) as of Friday and no longer restricted to essential travel only. We decided, however, to enjoy dinner on the patio of Nomiya on Thursday evening before the weekend rush and look forward to venturing further afield again over the coming weeks.
On Thursday Elaine also enjoyed a lovely long chat to our granddaughter, Capri, for her birthday. It’s been so long since we’ve had this opportunity, but it was wonderful to catch up. Of course, the conversation resolved around the constraints in her life right now due to the pandemic; home-schooling, limited interaction with her friends, keeping herself busy with her reading and practising her cheerleading, but when she asked, with a degree of desperation in her voice: “when are we going to see you again Grandma, it’s been too long”, your heart wants to break into a million pieces, because, of course, the answer is: “we just don’t know sweetheart”.
Setting these upsetting thoughts aside, our yacht task for the day was to test our 30,000 litres / 8,000 gallons per hour, high volume pump and give it a fresh water flush. The last time we’d used this pump was on Tanner Island, Vanuatu, to wash off all the volcanic ash that had landed on Paw Paw overnight from Mt Yasur. We were relieved to find the pump still worked as designed and Elaine was delighted at her creative method for testing it. Other tasks over the past few days have included stirring up the fuel tanks to ensure the fuel polishing system is cleaning the fuel tanks properly, hoisting a new courtesy flag, given that yet another one had disintegrated, adjusting a few hatches to prevent them from flopping closed and washing the decks, topsides, cockpit, helmstation and interior soles. Being a much cooler day yesterday, with a welcomed rain shower in the afternoon, was the perfect day for our cleaning chores as the rain also dislodged all the soot from the rigging.
Other activities aboard have included Elaine completing one of her special projects, which was very much appreciated by Paul, celebrating his big Five-O birthday on Friday, under lockdown too. Also Elaine completed and uploaded our video, “Rebak Private Island Resort & Marina Under MCO” and started the next one, “Magnolious Malaysia - Johor Bahru”; she’s slowly catching up on these. Work on her second special project continued as well, as did Roy’s testing phase for his latest major enhancements to the Anchor Plus application.
From a “virtual” socialising perspective, besides the video call from Paul and Justine, we also received a video call from Anne, off Time Bandit, who are still in the Maldives making their way south along the island chain and we also enjoyed a video call to Elaine’s sister, Dianne, in Ireland. We were, however, fascinated at hearing all about the sailing conditions and experiences that Anne and Stuart were enjoying and realised, having cruising friends ahead of us for a change definitely, had its benefits.
On Friday morning, though, we woke to all shorts of news on the seismic, atmospheric and pandemic fronts; three separate earthquakes and tsunami warnings, with various authorities in the South Pacific islands instructing citizens in certain areas of their respective countries to: “immediately evacuate to higher ground” and: “anyone near the coast who felt a long or strong quake, should move immediately to the nearest high ground or as far inland as you can", as well as urgent calls for: “people evacuating should walk, run or cycle, if possible, to reduce the chance of getting stuck in traffic. Do not return until the all-clear is given by Civil Defence" or raising awareness of: “strong / unusual currents may occur. People should keep out of the water” or: “expect dangerous rips, currents and some localised overflowing at the water's edge”. Varying levels of these alerts were issued in New Zealand for the northeastern parts of North Island, Australia's Norfolk Island, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, the Loyalty Islands of New Caledonia and Hawaii. This mayhem was the result of three powerful earthquakes that occurred in the span of a few hours; first a 7.3 magnitude striking east of Te Araroa at 0227 (NZ Time), a 7.4 earthquake near Raoul Island at 0641 (NZ Time) and then the stronger 8.1 magnitude earthquake near the Kermadec Islands, about 1000Km north of New Zealand. The latter quake is reportedly the highest magnitude earthquake recorded since the one that struck a remote part of the Amazon jungle in Peru in 2019.
Then the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre reported a collection of cyclones developing in the South Indian and Pacific Oceans, including one tracked to run the full length of New Caledonia from the northwestern tip to the southeastern tip, this at a time when many cruisers would ordinarily have moved their yachts to either New Zealand or Australia for the cyclone season, but have been forbidden to do so by these governments, sighting full border closures due to the pandemic.
And, as if that wasn’t enough bad news on the global stage for one day, Malaysia reported the detection of a new COVID-19 variant that is thought to be more transmissible and resistant to antibodies, known as the B1525 variant. It was found in two people who had travelled from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. Analysis of the associated COVID-19 tests indicated the presence of mutations including E484K and a similar suite of protein deletions seen in a variant of the virus first detected in Britain. The E484K protein spike mutation is of particular concern as this mutation has been reported to evade the immune system and, therefore, possibly reduce the effectiveness of vaccines. The B1525 variant has also been detected in England, Nigeria, Denmark and Canada.
It seems Mother Nature is truly unleashing her wrath in more ways than one!
On a far more cheerful note, we enjoyed a video of the twins, who had decided, of their own accord, to confuse their teacher, Miss April, by switching shoes; her only means of telling them apart and they were totally gleeful at their devious plan. Oh boy! Little rascals!
Today we decided we needed a day without chores, without yacht repairs and without yacht projects and, although we were supposed to watch the finals of the Americas Cup which was postponed due to the snap lockdown in Auckland, Elaine caught up on the blogs and continued her efforts on our website videos, while Roy baked and continued his testing.
We also had a bit of fun recording a video for Keenan’s birthday and wished Justine a happy birthday too.
