Barwean - rain,rain,rain,rain........

Another overnight journey sees us arrive at Barwean, a large and prosperous island.  It’s a great anchorage and we are joined by fellow yachties from Boomerang and Sutemon.  Our evening with Rod, Jen, Duncan, Jane and Tony is raucous to say the least.

Happy hour with fellow yachties

Many of the houses are beautiful and quite wealthy compared to other islands.

Not quite finished

Launching a recently anti-fouled fishing boat by hand!

A village water fountain - each home is assigned a water pipe. 
The women fill their buckets with their water.

Local house

Graeme finds a local warung and we eat there for 3 lunches.  There is no menu - just the special of the day - chicken and noodle soup, nasi goreng etc.  Each meal is about $1 depending on the day.

Graeme's favourite warung

We borrow/hire 3 motor bikes from our warung owners and decide to tour the island for $10 each bike for the afternoon.  Who's idea was this?  It starts to rain and doesn't stop for 5 hours.  Our trip takes us 42km in torrential rain through villages, mud, towns, mud, the main port, mud, up mountains, mud, roadworks, mud, mud, mud.  We are drenched, cold and stiff from riding.  We are a spectacle.  The villagers haven't seen many whities - they think we are completely stupid for riding in the rain!

Rain, mud, rain, mud

Bizarre - abandoned carnival ride in a paddock. 
The kids take turns in pushing it around.

We befriend 3 local teenage boys aged 10-15 who swim out to our boat one afternoon.  We give them swimming goggles and a soft drink.  Brian runs them back into shore on the dinghy at full speed and they are thrilled by the ride.  Sadly we later discover they re-visit our boat whilst we are out at night and steal Graeme and Brian's iphones.  They also take the flares from the dinghy.  Its a shame because so far everyone has been very friendly and trustworthy.  We will lock the boat from now on.