Things are not always as they seem

Our next destination was Kingfisher Bay Resort about 20 nautical miles north.  The route has many narrow shallow channels so we carefully followed the channel markers and constantly watched our depth gauge.  Overcast conditions made it difficult to spot the channel markers without binoculars. 

Red to port ...

Green to starboard ...

Marcelle steering in the drizzle, wearing a super goretex-type jacket which was paid for by contributions from kind colleagues at Quotient on her retirement. 

After motoring all the way, we anchored off Kingfisher Bay Resort and went ashore in the early evening.

Big mistake. Already in the dinghy I felt insect bites and by the time our quick 20 minute recce was over, I was itching all over. Initially we thought it was mosquitoes but as the dozens of bite marks developed into red itching welts we realized it was probably sandflies or midges. It looked like I had measles and needed liberal coatings of Anthisan to relieve the constant itching.  Robert seemed bite-free but when he went ashore the next day without me as their preferred victim, he too returned with souvenir bites. Five days later the red spots are still evident.

Kingfisher Bay Resort is somewhat seedy and matched the drab weather so we decided to move on to Scarness and Pialba via Urangan as we needed to top up our diesel and water.  Robert had researched the approach to the fuel jetty at Urangan Harbour but things are not always as they seem on Google and to our dismay, there was no place for the trimaran to moor alongside the fuel jetty and barely space to turn around.  Robert tried to turn the boat to back out in the limited space and as luck would have it, the engine cut out and would not restart as Robert desperately tried to get the engine going.  Pegasos drifted towards the other moored boats.

In situations like this, it always seems every other boat is hugely expensive and we are about to trash them. Luckily there were enough vigilant owners about to catch our ropes and pull Pegasos to an available mooring next to their boats as we leaned over pushing off the other boats as we came dangerously close. It was a close shave, very close I thought as I was being squished between another boat's bow sprit and our guardrail.

Robert refueled by carting the jerry cans up and down and with help to turn the boat off the temporary mooring, we moved out the Harbour and anchored off shore near Pialba pier. It was a comfortable anchorage and the next day we were able to go ashore for shopping and laundry at low tide. The tidal range in this part of the world is about 2 meters.  Reaching shore at low tide (or so we calculated), we dragged the dinghy as far as we could up the sand, quite a feat with a load of dirty laundry on my back and a gas bottle on Robert's back.  We estimated we had about two hours but a slight miscalculation meant we actually had less time. On return we saw the dinghy bobbing about in far more water than anticipated so Robert had to wade a distance to retrieve the dinghy, fortunately tied to a rock - now submerged.

Wading out to fetch the dinghy ...

Not his only tidal miscalculation. This was low tide three days earlier!