What can I say about yesterday? This is possibly the hardest entry to write up for the whole trip so far. We did absolutely nothing!

We got up early so that we could have longer doing nothing. After a leisurely shower we sauntered over to the beach hut for a leisurely breakfast which we ate in a leisurely fashion staring out over the flat calm South China Sea to the chineese hat shaped Islands floating peacefully in the hot morning sunshine. Mandy then felt that she had had enough of being leisurely on the veranda and decided that she wanted to go and be leisurely by the swimming pool so we sauntered over to the swimming pool and lay down for a while to have a rest. After we had had a rest we recovered enough to read a few chapters. Or rather, a few books. Then Mandy went for a swim. So did I. Then we lay down for a rest again. For some reason which I find very hard to explain, I was getting bored ( just in case you hadn't already guessed!) So I went and got some fruit juice from the beach hut. They were real pulped fruit fruit juices one pineapple and one watermelon and Mandy had to choose which one she wanted. She chose the pineapple and then needed to lie down to recover from the effort of making the decision!

I HAD HAD ENOUGH!

I drank my Watermelon crush and fairly walked quickly over to the beach hut and hired a kayak. The boys unceremoniously dumped a bright yellow one at the waters edge, handed me tha paddle and walked back to their laptops. Had I mentioned that everyone here under the age of 21 walks round with a laptop under their arm and its not unusual to see four or five kids in a cafe all with their laptops open on the table. The cafes also provide extension cables and multi sockets so they can plug in their chargers. we were in a cafe in Sandakan the other day which had extension cables to five different tables. Anyway..... back to the Kayak. I am not unfamiliar with boating, I was sailing from the age of 5 and sailing and fishing in various craft in Liverpool Bay alone and with brother up untill my late teens. so it was with great confidence that I leapt into that bright yellow kayak. The Kayak, it turned out, had other ideas . and spat me out on the other side as quick as a flash and with a resounding splash! I surfaced, thanking heaven above that I hadn't brought my camera, and the first thing I saw was a line of lads from the gardens, the beach hut and the pool splitting their sides. I laughed too. The only thing to do in the circumstances and now very aware of my audience climbed very cautiously into the rebelious craft. Every thing went well and I had one leg in the boat the other bent up under my chin one hand on each gunwhale and started to lower myself into the seat as you might lower yourself into a bath. The problem came when my bum reached the little whole it was supposed to fit through. It didnt! What could I do whith an audience of hundreds? I just let go with my hands and hoped that gravity would come to my assistance. Fortunately it did and I slid down into the seat like a well oiled piston. The rest was childsplay and to the tumultulous applause of the crowd on the beach, or was it laptops being clicked open I paddled off towards the horizon. I spent a happy hour paddling up and down the coast and exploring little inlets and so on whih helped me work up an appetite for lunch which was again superb. We did more of the same in the afternoon with a walk along the beach collecting pieces of coral followed by a late dinner. I had "Whole fish Nyagymo Style" which was fantastic and I guessed it was a red snapper, I asked the waiter if it was red snapper and he said "No Sir it is Red Fish Sir" So Non the wiser really! Anyway as we are the only people staying in the hotel at the moment we felt guilty keeping all the staff up and went to bed.

Sorry about todays boring Blog but as everyone except Sarah and Jan and Martyn have got bored with it we thought we could stop doing exciting things for a while