Prapat Prep

21 March 2008, Prapat, Indonesia

The next morning, I woke Pascal at 5am.

"I never sleep!", was Pascal immediate reaction.

The moon was full and high when we arrived at the jetty, illuminating the lake and casting a glow on everything. I could make out the lights of Tuk Tuk flickering in the distance. I wondered if I should paddled there to join up with the guys or wait for them further down lake. Then I got a text message saying that the lads were still having their breakfast. And it was cold, well maybe next time.

After yesterday's notice about the bamboo feathercraft, I held my breath as I quickly did a check of Fullmoon's parts before assembly. I felt strange as the bag was not packed by me, with the parts in unfamiliar places in the bag. I guessed the bamboo in the feathercraft was the result of someone not remembering to bring a tube.

Fullmoon is 9 years old now. It has toured with me for thousands of kilometers on Southeast Asia's waterways. The rest of the lads were all in their Kahunas and Wispers, and Fullmoon would be the smallest kayak out there. I am proud of Fullmoon, but yet sometimes wondered if I should retired it already. It had cracked its ribs a few times, but all it took to fix them was a call to Feathercraft and Fullmoon was well again. The 'problem' with folding kayaks was that they last so long, it will take some justifications to buy a new one.

I got everything set up within half-hour and waited. The Sun was just coming up behind me and the moon was disappearing behind the clouds. Children appeared out of nowhere and gathered round the kayak, poking, and asking questions. Pascal became my spokesman and started getting busy demonstrating to the kids, with his twisting hands, how the kayak was assembled and pointing to where I planned to go.

I took out the GPS and map. 38km to Muara, that was where the next nearest accommodation was.

With an experienced team, this would take half a day, at most 7 hours. With a couple of new paddlers among the group, I was expecting about 5km/hr and some delays. A bit of night paddling was planned, just in case.

Never did I expect that it was to be one of the longest paddle in my life.