Second Jab and a Slinky Visitor
Monday, November 22nd, 2021
November 2021
Time was running on and I still hadn’t had my second Covid vaccination. It has become essential for any sort of travel and I decided to make an effort to get it done. Friends of mine had been told that foreign visitors had to go to a particular clinic in Mataram. I had been planning a trip there to get an extension of my visa so it didn’t seem like too much of a problem. However, when I mentioned it to Albert who was managing the extension procedure, he offered to make some inquiries and about half an hour later he had arranged for a friend of his in the police force to take me to a nearby village where I could get the shot. It seemed like a good opportunity and we roared across to the mainland in the marina dinghy where the policeman and his motorbike were waiting on the jetty. I climbed up onto the machine and we sped off down the narrow road that follows the coast. It was quite a long ride.
At last we arrived at a cluster of small houses and a group of nurses and medics gathered in a ‘pondok’ which is a little raised platform with a palm-frond roof. They were quite happy to give me the jab, but only had Sinovac which I had been told I should not have in combination with the Astra Zeneca I’d been given in Fiji. After some consultation, involving Google Translate on my phone, and a mere half-hour wait, a special delivery of Pfizer was made. What wonderful service.
The next day I was feeling a bit washed out due to a reaction to the vaccine and spent most of the day sleeping on my bunk. At some point in the afternoon I got up to get some fresh air outside and as I glanced across at the opposite bunk where I usually sit at my little table, I was rather startled to see a long silver and black banded snake smoothly moving along the top of the cushions and across the table. Wow. I grabbed my phone and took a picture, hopped into my dinghy and rowed ashore for help. One of the marina staff came back with me and very calmly and competently lifted the snake with the help of a broomstick and put it into my canvas bucket. It was then taken some distance away from the boat and released in the middle of the channel.
A beautiful creature but extremely venomous. I was told that it was a Banded Sea Krait and they are quite common here. Fortunately not aggressive. OK. So now I am supremely conscious of where I place my feet when I come below, and check before sticking my hand into the dark recesses of a locker. Awareness is all! Friends in the nearby anchorage at Gili Asahan have had one come aboard four nights in a row.
