Banda Neira, 28 January 2025

Still off Banda Neira today. Well, we were this morning. As I write this we’ve left and are making our way to some other islands. But it was an earlier start this morning with a 7am breakfast and in the tender to go snorkelling by 8.30. Unfortunately the sea was a bit rougher at the proposed site and we eventually ended up back where we were yesterday off the lava flow. At least this meant Lynn was able to see the same things, and although it was still raining the sea was flat and visibility was even better than yesterday.

Then back to the boat for lunch. In the afternoon the plan was for a walk on the east side of Banda Api. It had cleared up by then and was getting quite warm. We started walking between a small village strung out along the shore. Like many of these places it looks pretty poor – no running water, basic huts of a couple of rooms and rubbish everywhere. The locals were largely sitting outside to watch us go by. But before very long somebody in the group ahead of us apparently fell on the slippery and uneven ground and broke their wrist. So we slowly filed back through the village and waited around for the tender to retrieve us.

The rest of the day was predictably reading, hearing the plans for the coming days and then having dinner. We have not yet been to one of the documentaries after dinner; we retire to rest early.

As an aside, I don’t know how this blog is working. The basic satellite internet is incredibly slow so it is hard to load anything and difficult to connect to the blog, let alone attach pictures. So tonight I will forsake the laptop and try to publish it in a limited form from the phone. A speedtest said we’re using Starlink and the download speed is 0.04 Mbps.