Last night, around 11pm, the mooring that Mata'irea has been parked on for the past 3 weeks broke. Mata'irea drifted down through the anchorage, eventually slamming into the front two bows of a catamaran. The initial impact roused us out of bed. Sten and the folks on the cat worked on fending us off as I started the engine. As soon as we were clear of the cat, Sten took over the wheel and I took a dive light to the bow to try to find us another mooring for the night.
This morning we inspected the damage and discovered that we have a bent stanchion. We must have made first impact with the cat's bowsprit. The cat was gone in the morning, so we didn't have a chance to see what damage they suffered. The weird thing about this whole incident is that there was hardly any wind last night. The mooring line must have been chafing, unseen, inside the mooring ball for some time, and tonight was just the night that the last thread chafed through.
While out doing errands today, we found ourselves at an Ace Hardware. Now, this wasn't just a random hardware store infringing on Ace's tradename, this was an honest-to-god Ace "is the place with the helpful hardware folks" Hardware Store. Walking in the door, we stepped out of the steamy heat of Bali into airconditioned comfort, jam packed with all the things that make life much easier on board a boat. Sten stocked up on Never Dull metal polish and I loaded my basket with bottles of Shout stain remover, Astonish and OxyClean. Does life get better than this?
We also picked up a more powerful spotlight at Ace. Last night we discovered that the divelight's beam just isn't focused enough to pick out buoy lines and moorings at any distance at night. The waters between Bali and Thailand are rumored to be chockablock with small unlit fishing boats, fish attracting devices, and rafts of garbage. A good spotlight should make night passages a lot easier.
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