What did the Equator bring.....?

....heat and more heat and today a tropical thunderstorm with strong winds(up to 30 knots) and lots of rain (managed to fill up the water tanks)and exciting sailing too; a great equator party on the beach with the crews of several other yachts - we all got dressed up in our self crafted Neptune garb and cooked dinner on a beach fire, and got bitten mercilessly by little midges, despite repellent.
We are now at the island of Mesanak, one of the Riau group on that long chain of little islands before Singapore Island. We are staying on tomorrow and I hope to do some snorkeling. The local lads who came out to the boat in their canoes this afternoon indicated that there is good snorkeling on the reef.
The fish traps that the locals erect over the water are an interesting feature here. At the last stopover there were about 150 of these up to about 5 km out to sea. They are platforms made out of long poles, each platform supporting a large circular net that can be lowered into the water and lit at night to attract the fish. Each platform has a little one roomed hut on top, presumably someone sleeps there overnight. It's a nightmare for us to navigate amongst them at night- but so far we've been successful.