October 16, 2008 - Sanur, Bali, Indonesia

We picked Dad up from the airport last night around 11pm, and promptly whisked him off to our favorite roast duck joint, which is conveniently open 24 hours. After finishing off half a duck, a few cold Bintangs and some seafood rice porridge, we made our way back to Serangan. Dad spent the night with us on board Mata'irea, and got to experience the thrill of having his sleep interrupted twice by rain falling through the open hatch above his head. First thing in the morning, he got his complementary sauna when the sun came out and turned the windless harbor into a steam bath. Hey, only the finest for our guests. After breakfast, we took mercy on the guy and checked him into a hotel room in the relaxed resort town of Sanur, complete with air conditioning and a pool.

While Sten got comfortable with the Sunday New York Times, Dad and I took a walk around a few of the resorts. We were shortly both drenched with sweat and a little lightheaded from the heat. So we plopped ourselves down in a cafe to have a fruit juice and recover. Afterwards, we made our way back to the hotel, where Dad had a short nap (as he had only had a few hours of sleep the night before and his internal clock was telling him that it was midnight), and I managed to wrest a section of the Times away from Sten and take it over to the pool.

Mid-afternoon found us all at a Thai restaurant for a late lunch, after which we took Dad (who had been too busy to get a haircut before his trip) to see Afi, our very effeminate barber from Borneo. After the trip to the salon, and wandering through the shops a bit, we headed back to the pool and the Times to wait for the sun to go down and the air temperature to become manageable. After dark, we realized that it wasn't going to improve enough to venture very far afield for dinner, so we made our way to a nearby cafe to share a Rijsttafel, which we thought would be a good way to introduce Dad to some of the more common Indonesian dishes. After dinner we left Dad at the hotel and took a cab back to the boat. As much as we would have enjoyed taking a room at the hotel and sleeping in air conditioned comfort, we needed to run the generator to charge up the batteries and draw down the freezer before leaving Mata'irea alone on a mooring for a few days.