By the seaside

The half of the boat that we knew best :) 

After our exciting but very low-key Friday night at the parade yesterday, today we had plans for a full afternoon out on the water to celebrate our friend Sam’s birthday. For him it was a bit of an organisational nightmare, but it all came together in the end, and I am so pleased to have finally been on one of these trips (thanks to someone else doing all the hard work and chasing to get it booked in).

Settling in for the day 

We had arranged to meet (all 38 of us) at the Republic of Singapore Yacht Club, where we would be met by the boat, ready for a full afternoon (from 12-6pm) of boating, drinking and a BBQ out by the beach in a little lagoon inside one of the tiny islands surrounding Singapore called Lazarus Island.

            Nick and I arrived early, along with the birthday boy and a few others, so we made ourselves useful getting the boat ready, packing all the food and drink away ready for the masses to arrive.

Drinks with a view as we made our way over to Lazarus Island 

Of the 37 people who eventually made it on-board I knew around half of them really well, and the other half were all great fun, so there followed a fabulous afternoon of mooching, sunbathing, swimming and generally lounging around. It wasn’t as productive as a Saturday spent at the gym and perfecting veggie-only recipes, but it could definitely have been worse, and you need to have a little bit of fun every now and then after all!

A less common view of the Singapore skyline, captured on our return journey

After our six hours at sea the plan was to move the party back to Liv and Matt’s house for the rest of the evening. I had already had more than enough of being out and about, and so in an attempt to reduce the total damage as much as possible I stopped in to see Liv briefly on our way home before calling it a night. Liv and Matt live one block away so it wasn't hard to stop in and see them, and as Liv hadn’t been able to go on the boat because she needed to work all day I wanted to make sure she wasn’t too stressed at the sudden influx of people crashing her house, and to extend the offer of a quiet night on our sofa if it was required. Luckily she was just about having fun by the time we got there, so we left her to try and control the mess (she completely failed judging by the pictures I saw the next day) while Nick and I returned home to shower, drink tea and avoid any more naughty drinks or food. It was slightly bad behaviour, but it was totally worth it. What a brilliant way to spend a Saturday!