6.15am my alarm went off. The usual ear harassment, not Edd’s chirping birds. We got dressed and packed the last of our bits into our bags; we had a lot of wet stuff still from the day before, even though Edd had hung them up by the aircon to dry, so I stuffed a plastic packet with my soaked sandals and hat, the rest was just damp, they went on top of my vacuum sealed clothes, so as to not get everything else damp too.
 
Breakfast was at 7am, or rather stupid o’clock; we were being fetched at 7.30am, so it was going to be a bit of a rush job. Everyone ordered scrambled eggs on toast, with bacon, except for me: I ordered the musli option instead, spice it up a bit. Our usual tea and coffees came, along with Edd’s juice and a fruit platter - we’d gotten into the habit of swopping the bits of fruit we didn’t like with each other, so the first 15 seconds of every fruit platter involved forks full of what ever we didn’t like onto someone elses plate and they in turn dumped what ever they didn’t like, but we did onto ours. Then its rub a dub dub, until the hot food arrived. My milk turned out to be condensed, which was a bit too much sugar so early in the morning, so I ended up eating the bits on top with the plain yoghurt and strawberries. I was full anyway, so it wasn’t a huge disaster, just a bit of a waste.
 
Wafiki was waiting for us at the reception area and we all climbed into the minivan for the 1.5 hour drive to the airport, we were catching a flight to Flores at 11.00am. We were dropped off at arrivals, but walked through it to departures and had to show our itinerary to prove we actually needed to go inside - if you weren’t catching a flight, you had no business in the airport building, as it turned out.
 
We found the Geruda Air desks and I showed the check in lady our itinerary, she read the wrong one and told us we couldn’t check in - Edd’s folks thought we were too late and were therefore going to miss our flight, but the truth was that she thought we were trying to check in 4 hours too early. She then reread it and found the correct flight details, then asked for our passports and checked our luggage in. We had some time to kill, so went through security to the other side and meandered around the shops for a bit. We bought drinks and a snack at the shop and then sat in comfy chairs until we were called.
 
Edd’s dad came back and said our gate had been moved, but we weren’t boarding yet so didn’t have to walk down to it for a while. He walked off a while later to see if we were boarding and came back and said our gate had been moved back to the original one, where we were sitting, so we didn’t have to go anywhere. Then a lady came over the speakers a while after that and announced that our gate had been moved to a third location, but we still weren’t boarding - it was now 10.40am and our flight was suppose to leave at 11am, we were definitely not going to be on time. We all walked over to the newly updated gate and waited for instructions - it turned out they were using the same gate for another plane and those people were also getting confused as their gates kept changing. They certainly weren’t an organised bunch.
 
We boarded our plane at 11am and took off quite promptly afterwards. Edd and I hadn’t flown Geruda Air yet, and were quite impressed with the plane. Instead of having no smoking and wear your seat belt signs, they had no electronics and wear your seat belt signs; they even gave you a snack and a juice. Amazing. My only critism was that the speakers were too loud, so when the captain came on to let the staff know we were landing in 5 minutes, I’m pretty certain the people in central Africa heard as well. 
 
We landed, disembarked, walked up a large amount of stairs and a ramp and then down an escalator - going to come straight back down, why bother. We waited a while for our bags and once collected, had to hand our baggage tickets to a man that made sure we were only taking our own stuff. (I originally thought he was trying to ask us if we needed a taxi).
 
A tall man in a blue shirt with the words 'Tiger Blue' embroidered on it greeted us with a big smile; he knew everyones names and shook our hands, introducing himself. Edd and I climbed into a minivan with the bags, but his folks were told to go in a different car. Apparently we were arriving in style and princesses don’t slide.
 
The lady at the exit boom mistimed our departure and it landed on the bonnet of our car, the driver gave her a death stare that should be bottled and sold.
 
Our driver waited for the car Edd’s folks were in and we zoomed off to the harbour, stopping on the way to take a snap of the bay. We were put in a speed boat (the one that divers go in) and taken to our ship/boat. The Tiger Blue was the highlight of our journey and the bit Edd and I were looking forward to the most (Edd because it was sailing and me because it wasn’t in a dodgy backpackers with bedbugs and mould).
 
We climbed on board and were given fresh faceclothes soaked in mint and a cranberry juice each; we were then taken to our rooms which were below deck… problem. The agreement was that the 1 room above deck was booked for Edd’s folks; Edd and I were supposed to be booked into a double room downstairs and we were in a twin room instead - problem 2. We had all be so excited to go on the boat and it had started off on a particularly low note.
 
Other passengers had arrived on the earlier flight in the morning and been checked into some of the other rooms - a couple on honey moon had the above deck room and Edd put on his ‘sort this out with your management’ voice and walked away. We then played a gave of musical bedrooms where everyone that had already checked in had to move to a different room, which made us feel really bad and look pathetic. Edd and I moved to the room his folks were supposed to be in and one of the crew said ‘but I thought you were okay with your room?’ Yes, it was okay, but no it was not what we’d booked. Edd’s folks had been the ones to charter the boat in the first place in January and were told there may be other passengers on board, but guaranteed to get x, y and zed. We only been on 10 minutes and received nothing that was part of the agreement that had been in writing, twice, as Edd’s mum had emailed a week before to double check.
 
It left a bad taste in everyones mouth and was a horrendous way to start the highlight of our holiday. Edd brought it up over lunch, to explain to the rest of the people on board why we’d arrived and suddenly everyone had to move rooms, to try and build some kind of repour with the other passengers, as we looked like complete mugs. Everyone seemed okay, but I know I’d have been pretty peeved if it was me. We were onboard with an American pair - mom and daughter and then the honeymooners. There was apparently a family joining us the next day and we wondered if it was going to be like on the Lakehouse - screaming 2 year old at 4 in the morning. We hoped not, these cabins were much closer together.
 
We had lunch, which was delicious, while the boat was moving and then had a briefing afterwards about safety, who everyone was, and what the POA was. Apparently we were picking people up the next day, which was a bit odd as usually people all arrive on the same day and then leave together.
 
We were told that there was an afternoon snorkel and dive, so everyone got their things together (the snorkelers had their own stuff mostly, but there were bits that could be borrowed, so Edd and his dad got a pair of flippers each to help them swim). The divers tried on the wet suits, while we were leaving and chatting about diving stuff that I had no knowledge of. I’d always wanted to go diving, but due to ear issues, decided an intact eardrum was probably better than diving 60 meters and then accidentally bursting it again (especially after already having 2 operations to replace it). Snorkelling was a good second best, even though I still wished I could go deeper.
We were taken to a reef with a guide and jumped off the speed boat (a different one from the one we were picked up on). There were beautiful reefs where we were and we snorkelled for over an hour, washing ourselves up onto the beach where Edd’s mum was.  I went and sat on the beach and watched Edd’s mum on her ‘blowy uppy thing’ with his dad paddling around the edge of the reef, looking at fish. (His mum is not a particularly confident swimmer, so not the sort of person to jump into the open sea backwards and explore it). Edd told me to show them the enormous clown fish we’d found (the size of his hand) so I swam out to where it was and his folks joined me; it was only about 10 meters off shore, but much further than his mum every went, so a real treat for a first time).  
 
We then had a little relax while we dried off and went back to the boat a while later, we were given G & T’s a we got off (Edd had jokingly ‘ordered’ them as we left) and warm face clothes to wipe our faces with, again smelling of mint - I could definitely get used to this. The divers hadn’t come back yet, so we were alone for a short while and served banana fritters - delicious.
The divers arrived back and more banana fritters went around, we all chatted about what we’d seen and then went downstairs to our rooms to get showered and ready for dinner, apparently it was being served at 7.30pm. Edd and I had a cold shower as the thermostat hadn’t been turned up high enough and wasn’t heating the water; he had also turned the aircon on full blast, so I felt a bit like I’d stepped into Antarctica when I got out of my cold shower.
 
Dinner was delicious, again as we were served wahoo fish with rice and salad. Edd and I went to bed reasonably early as we’d had a bit of an early start and the day had been quite eventful. Our bed was enormous and I nearly got lost in it! It was also just a bit too high for me, so I needed to do a little jump to get it: being a small human had its drawbacks.