We’ve had two very lazy days, primarily due to sleep deprivation, after we spent Tuesday night and last night, as well as all day yesterday rockin’ and rollin’ around with a swell from the south and strong winds out of the east. However, Elaine still cooked us a breakfast yesterday morning of freshly baked crumpets and bacon, accompanied by our usual selection of fresh fruit, before heading straight back to bed, while Roy spent his time catching up on all his podcasts.

It was close to 1400 when Elaine surfaced and, by then, we both needed to get off Paw Paw. It was the perfect opportunity to enjoy a nice long walk; along the beach of Panwa Bali, up over the hill, along the beach of Ao Yon and back, stopping in at At the Beach to enjoy a well earned cold beverage, before mustering up the will to return to Paw Paw. If it wasn’t for the tide dropping, we may very well have stayed just where we were, in the company of a little bird that merrily chirped and sang to us while we sat and admired the scenery. Too cute!

We were definitely surprised, though, to see just how rough the conditions were in the Ao Yon anchorage, making us feel a little better that we were indeed in the best possible anchorage for the conditions, not to mention the fact that, as the day progressed more yachts arrived in our anchorage, including a few speed boats and fishing boats.

Fortunately, by this morning, the swell had settled and life became bearable again onboard. Over breakfast we enjoyed a lovely long chat to Keenan, who was on a stopover in Boise, Idaho, enjoying an early Thanksgiving dinner at a fancy restaurant, since he was working over the holiday week to get folks to their loved ones, while he spent the time apart from his, like flight crew all over the US. Fortunately the family had had an early Thanksgiving celebration together before Keenan left for work and Brooke and all the grandchildren had been invited to Miss April’s, the twins’ teacher, for Thanksgiving day. A very kind gesture from her indeed.

Afterwards, we both needed a nap to catch up on lost sleep, before Elaine finished the last of her paperwork, for now anyway, and Roy backed up all our devices, given that we’d completed downloading all the satellite views and Navionics charts needed for our Indian Ocean crossing.

Just before bedtime we received a photograph of the sunrise as Keenan flew over Idaho. Oh the joys of our globally dispersed family! The news we definitely didn’t want to hear about, however, was the new variant discovered in South Africa, potentially resulting in another year of separation from our loved ones and adversely impacting our sailing plans!