Day 47, Year 4: Happy Birthday to Jed!
Date: Monday, December 8, 2008
Weather: Another Rainy Day
Location: Rebak Marina on Pulau Rebak Besar, Langkawi, Malaysia
Today is our son-in-law’s 37th birthday. As he reads this he is finding out that his birthday present this year will be a Thai cooking class when he, Heather, and Sam visit us in Thailand. So Happy Birthday, Jed! We can’t wait to see you in Thailand in January.
Today was certainly better than yesterday, and we are learning to live with the rain. Since we are trying to plug the teak deck and do some painting, rain is not helpful, but we are getting there. Things are enough in control that I have started my annual inside boat cleaning. I usually do this right before we come home each year, but since we are not exactly sure when we will come home (sometime before April), I’ve decided it is best to do it now.
Neighbors who have the kind of dinghy motor that Mark really wants to buy, the Yamaha Enduro 15 horsepower, loaned us their outboard this morning. It is heavier than our current motors, so I was particularly anxious to see how hard or easy it would be to get it onboard Windbird, and I also wanted to see how the dinghy would ride with it. Hauling it up and down was really no different than our current Suzuki and the dinghy handled the extra weight with no problem. And my, oh my, it does go fast.
So this was a successful experiment and we are thinking more and more that we will probably buy a new Yamaha before we leave Malaysia.
We heard from Kevin and Claire today, our friends that will arrive in Bangkok next Monday. The Bangkok airport is open now and it looks like all systems are a go. We are really looking forward to their visit. It will give us the excuse we need to stop working and get out there and have some fun. We also heard from our daughter Heather this morning. She, Jed, and Sam had a Norman Rockwell experience yesterday. They woke up on a Sunday morning with freezing rain that eventually turned to snow,
so they took Sam to get their Christmas tree. The place where they bought their tree was serving hot apple cider and the picture she painted made us long for just a moment for cold weather and snow. It sounded so beautiful. They got home with the little balsam fir and put the lights on it which has Sam absolutely spellbound. He says “wow” every time he passes by the tree. We haven’t heard from Justin and Jo for a few days, but I know they are furiously getting ready for their trip to England.
Jo has not been home for two years, so both she and Justin and her family in England are really looking forward to this visit.
We will work furiously tomorrow to get everything shipshape and hope for the arrival of our mechanic with our transmission with new seals on Wednesday morning. If all goes well, and as always “if” is the important word here, we will be ready to leave Rebak on Thursday morning. We’ll head back to Kuah to take our two old dinghy motors to a place that will sell them on consignment and we’ll buy a new Yamaha Enduro for Windbird’s dinghy. Then we’ll head to Telaga Harbor where we will check out of
Malaysia and head for Ko Tarutao in Thailand where we will meet Kevin and Claire on Tuesday mid-day. So that’s the plan. Let’s hope we can stick to it.
