A quick catchup on what’s been happening

By Grant

December 13, 2023 we arrived from Australia on the Island of Lombok, Indonesia. We enjoyed 1 month of unadulterated surfing fun around Lombok and Bali. I think it is safe to say we almost surfed every single day and often twice. Arabella and Alex improved enormously and Daddy, well lets just say he still has a long way to go to look professional.

To summarise Indonesia is not easy. It is an incredible place and over the years Delphine and I have spent some incredible times. There is a spiritual side to the place and that coupled with the breathtaking beauty make it a must visit place for everyone. However, this was our first time on a boat and this brought two key observations. If you love surfing then go there on a boat because OMG it is so seriously amazing. I don’t think there is another place in the world which brings great anchorages together with great surf. And we only touched the surface. And secondly, try to not see all the rubbish. It really is sad that in this day and age the government of such a massive country with a massive economy cannot do more to keep the place clean. I know it isn’t easy when you have more than 17,000 islands but more must be done.

We enjoyed a great Christmas and had lots of fun getting to know the Fothergill Family on Happy Days. They schooled us in surfing but are a lovely family who we had the privilege of enjoying Christmas with. We also got to see Tobi Doeringer who brought us two incredible Ham’s and the Dixon family who we enjoyed their villa in Bali together and we got to play our first ever game of Padel

But truth be told we were always in a rush. We needed to get north to Singapore and then Phuket so we could not miss the very short window of favourable weather to sail west from Thailand towards Africa.

So rush we did and we slogged our way north through to Singapore which brought a completely new kinda fun. The kids especially loved Sentosa and all the fun activities for kids but the big highlight was getting to go see Cold Play live. Arabella in particular was overcome by emotions and pretty much cried throughout the show. Thanks you the the Couse family for arranging. What a fun night that will be remembered for a long long time.

I also got to play some golf with Anthony Couse Gary Leong, Stew Beck and Tao Lin. It is safe to safe the golf wasn’t particularly memorable for golf reasons but it certainly was great catching up with old friends. In truth Singapore is not my favourite place but I also have never really given it a chance. This was probably the longest I had ever been in Singapore and we were only there a week. Sailing into the great port and across the busiest shipping straight in the world was fun in its own right. Not so dissimilar to playing a computer game.

Soon we were sailing North again and by Feb 1 we arrived in Phuket after a pretty rough passage filled with some strong close haul sailing. Arriving back into Phuket was like a homecoming of sorts. This is where SV Arabella lived for her first 4 years and we got to have a reunion with Captain Morgan. Oh how I love Phuket and Asia. The kindness and caring nature everyone shows. Its simply the best.

At this junction we needed to do a short trip to China and Hong Kong which I will write about in the next post.