Earlier this week, Leo and Hazel spent an afternoon constructing a leprechaun trap out of Lego bricks. They built a chamber that was open on the top, filled it with all of their gold, and then positioned a flashlight to shine on the gold. They believed that the leprechauns would climb up the ramp, the ramp would then slip away, and the leprechauns would spend the night trapped in a Lego block prison.

Their plan was a spectacular failure, because we all woke up on the morning of Saint Paddies Day to find an empty leprechaun trap, no gold, and a completely trashed boat. The leprechauns apparently grabbed the gold and then wrecked havoc on Sophie, overturning chairs, scattering schoolbooks, and dumping flour and spices everywhere in some sort of mischievous Gaelic frenzy.

The children think it is awesome that we still live in a world where we need to be careful about incurring the wrath of magical elves. The parents? Not so much.

Later that night we all went to an Irish bar in Sanur, The Wicked Parrot, to celebrate with green beer and mashed potatoes. The place was full, but none of the retired Ozzie tourists dared compete with Leo and Hazel in the dance contests, and they won all of the prizes.

The local Indonesians who played in the Irish pub band thought they were pretty cool, though.

We are still in Bali waiting for the Indonesia social visas for Jenna and the kiddies to be renewed. In all of our other ports, we’ve been able to renew visas with 2-3 visits to the Immigrasi office, but in Bali it takes 10 business days and the renewal has to be handled by a paid agent. We probably will not get their visas back until next week, and then we will head north to Kalimantan to visit the orangutans. This will be our last stop in Indonesia before we move on to Singapore.

Since I flew back to the US in January, I am traveling on a different type of Indonesia visa, the 30 day “Visa on Arrival”.  It can only be renewed once, and after the second 30 day period you have to leave the country in order to get a new visa. So yesterday I boarded a cheap flight to Singapore, spent 90 minutes at Changi Airport there, then returned to Bali on another flight.

There were a lot of stores selling purses at the airport there, and I think Jenna may need to up her handbag game when we spend time in that country. Especially since we will be staying at the Republic of Singapore Yacht Club, which seems a little more swank than some of the places we’ve been staying at since we left New Zealand a year ago.

I was able to get a shot of Serangan Harbor as my flight gained altitude yesterday. Sophie is one of the dots to the right of the harbor.

We did get a new neighbor yesterday, and I do believe this a private yacht. I could picture myself driving this back in Seattle if our unicorn ever comes in. We could install a zipline between the mast and the crow’s nest!

We’ve also spent some time over the last week exploring Bali. It’s been fun watching Hazel go around using her camera. She did a nice job framing the entrance of a typical family dwelling in the center of the Bali.

The same family has lived here for 30 generations.

She also took some shots of their livestock and nailed, in my view, what it means to be a pig.

She also got a nice shot of a temple on the west coast, where hundred of Asian tourists where taking more pictures of her than of the temple.

From a cruising perspective, Bali represents a mixed bag to me. It has an incredibly interesting Hindu culture and history. It has excellent restaurants, water parks, and zip line rides. They sell cheap, delicious beer EVERYWHERE. It’s safe. The people here have a sweet and loving nature.

On the other hand, their are no quiet, secluded anchorages where you can swim off your boat. It is very crowded. You need to take a US$7 cab to go anywhere. The downtown area near Kuta is the most touristy place I’ve seen this side of Vegas.

I’m looking forward to being here for Balinese New Year this weekend, including the day of silence when EVERYTHING shuts down for 24 hours. And the night before we will watch the Ogoh Ogoh parades, where villages carry around giant paper maché statues of evil spirits, and then burn them on the beach.

After that, I’ll be quite ready to go offshore again. Time for the next adventure.