On Monday, we were still feeling pretty beat up from diving the day before. We went into town for breakfast. We ran into some of our new friends we had met from diving the day before and had breakfast with them, which was nice. We both got banana pancakes. Rather than mashing the banana into the batter, they put sliced bananas in the pan and dump the pancake batter around it so it all cooks up together. They were good.

We decided that we should probably spend the day doing chores, so we headed back to Kosmos. At that point we still hadn’t decided if we were leaving the next day, as we had originally told the harbor master, or if we would stay one more day to do another dive. As we were walking by the Harbor Master’s office, he flagged us down and told us to come inside to process our paperwork. We had to decide right then and there if we would leave tomorrow or stay another day. We decided to leave, mostly because at that moment we weren’t sure if we would be up for another dive and we didn’t really want to hang around Labuan Bajo another day if we weren’t diving.

Everyone in the Harbor Master’s office was really nice to us. They chatted and joked with us as they processed our paperwork. They handed the paperwork back with no requests for money, which was a relief.

Back at Kosmos, Eric changed the oil and oil filter, along with the fuel filter, on the main and Christi cleaned. We went back into town for dinner and had a really good meal.

The next morning (yesterday) we headed out on passage to Bali, which will take us 48 hours. Yesterday and today the seas have been calm and it has been a wonderful ride. We feel like we are somehow cheating when we get such calm days at sea.

And here are some answers to blog questions:

Q: Do you ever wish you had a bigger anchor? Does it ever drag on you?
A: We have an 88 lb Delta, which is rated for a larger boat than Kosmos. We have had no issues with our anchor setting or dragging to date. We are happy with the size. In all honesty, if we had a bigger anchor, there would have been no way we could have rescued the anchor from the sunken ship (Eric had to pick the anchor up four times to get it untangled), so you need to be cautious about getting something bigger than you can manhandle.

Q. Do you follow sites of other people doing a similar trip?
A. We did when we were at home, however, we stopped after we left because accessing internet with enough bandwidth has been a problem most of the places we have been so far. Once we get to areas with consistent (and affordable) connectivity, we will try to check out other people’s sites especially the ones who have already been where we are going.

Q: Will you be writing a book?
A: We think the blog postings could easily be converted to a book with a little editing, some format changes, and a chapter about getting ready to go. We would like to get it published as a book, but we are not sure how to go about finding a publisher, and we have questions about what specific changes would be best in converting from blog to book. Anyone have any advice for us?

Q: What flavor of Tim Tam is the best?
A: This is a fiercely debated topic. The truth of the matter is all the flavors are good, it is simply a matter of personal preference. Eric loves vanilla flavored foods, so he likes the toffee-vanilla flavor best. Christi is more of a chocoholic, and prefers double coat, which is original flavor (all chocolate) with extra chocolate on the outside. Adrienne’s favorite is chocolate mint.