Today is Hari Raja Puasa, the public holiday that marks the end of Ramadan. For us it is also two weeks after the lightning. And we are slowly recovering. Not so much the boat yet, but we have wrapped our heads around the new reality and started to adjust to it. We are making progress: we listed 75 items to repair, most of them with an identified part number and vendor. We bundled these into 11 categories, for each we need to get competitive quotations to submit for insurance approval before actual repair work can start. We have contractors coming to the boat almost every day, to assess the damage before they can quote for the repair job.But today is a public holiday, so we arranged for an excursion and playdate with Robin’s friends at the newly opened Jurong Lake gardens.Taking the MRT from Tuas Link to Lakeside is only about 20 minutes.The park is near the old Chinese and Japanese gardens, opposite the Canadian International School. We have seen the construction site many times, but never researched what they were building.

Jurong Lake Garden is another example of Singapore’s motto: a city in a garden. Like the Gardens by the Bay, it is an opportunity for Singaporeans to escape from high rises and relax in the green, exposed to the lush tropical nature. It also integrates the natural ecosystem of the lake shore and (former) swamp around it. Water from the lake is naturally filtered with plants, then (after a bit of UV treatment, it is Singapore after all) pumped into the water play for the kids, then fed back into the lake. The play areas are inspired by Heron’s nests, crabs, butterflies and muddy puddles (everybody loves muddy puddles!).

Robin’s best friends Rahul and Julian and their families met us at the playground, and the kids had a great time running around, swinging, jumping, and “building waterville to protect from the toxic waters of toxicville”.

This would be a great blog title if followed up with the description of how we are enjoying the sweet island life, rather than slogging 9-5. Which was more 5-9, really.

Eat dessert first, life is full of surprises. Here we were, on Wednesday 22nd May, slogging through our pre-departure to-do list, falling behind but trying to leave for the Anambas and Borneo soonest. It was a rainy day. Thunderstorms all around. And just before lunch at 12:27 it happened: lightning struck Rainbow Safari.

Nobody was hurt. The VHF antenna was blasted onto the deck and melted a groove into a cabin hatch. Some alarms went off inside the boat. The smell of burnt electronics. We switched off all systems and started to assess the damage. A longer process, as it turned out.

We did a visual check of the mast and outside of the boat. We checked the cabling and that nothing was on fire. We checked the bilges for any water coming into the ship. Apparently lightning can rip holes into fiberglass hulls and cause ships to sink. We did not find anything – there was no immediate danger to us or the ship.

We were lucky that Louis, who has been helping us with all our Leopard issues since day one, was in Singapore at the time. He first helped via WhatsApp, then came to our boat from 4 to 9 p.m.

We reconnected shore power, but found that our 12V house batteries would not charge. The inverter/charger was blown. The solar panels still seemed to supply power, but it was a rainy day. This gave us approx. 24 hours before the fridge/freezer would stop working and our batteries would be damaged.

Our Starboard AirCon was still working, but Port was not. Later in the evening we found that we could not start the engines (we hoped to charge the batteries that way).

We had no power to the 220V outlets, as these are supplied via the inverter/charger. We had no cabin lights, all dimmers were blown. Louis helped to rig a bypass to give the kids light. The next day he came back and bridged the 220V outlets directly to shore power.

While all this was going on, we were trying to process in our minds that instead of leaving for Borneo within days, we would be spending the next weeks and maybe months restoring Rainbow Safari.

Getting up on Thursday morning we were close to despair. The prospect of months in the marina working on the boat rather than sailing, diving, exploring seemed too much. Then the rain cleared and a rainbow appeared. They are rare in Singapore. After the lightning on the day before, it seemed like God was telling us that we would be ok and should carry on.

Genesis 9:16 “Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

Louis was great and helped us limit any further damage and get systems back to basic livability. We reported the damage to the insurance (Poe-Ma, a French company), who have been very good to work with so far. They assigned an experienced surveyor, Jamie, who came out on Friday for a detailed review of the boat.

We now know that while we got away lightly, we lost all our navigation electronics, the engine electronics, the inverter/charger, one AirCon control, the shower pumps, the cabin light dimmers, and a few other assorted items. We have not been able to find hull damage, but that needs more assessment.

We are working hard to try and get things fixed so we can still join our friends and the Borneo rally. The first quotes are coming in, but also information that some of the parts may not be available before end of June earliest.

Sailing (or maybe the better term would be boat ownership) teaches you flexibility and patience. We are trying to learn and adjust, keep up our spirits and remember to have dessert first.