Day 162, Year 4 Back in the Water . . . 888
Date: Thursday, April 2, 2009
Weather: Sunny Day with Late Afternoon Rain
Location: Boat Lagoon Marina, Phuket Island

Windbird is back in the water and securely tied to the B dock at Boat Lagoon. The day didn’t go exactly as planned but it went smoothly. We arrived at the boat just after 8 am and were told by Luck that the travel lift was arriving in just a few minutes to lift us so that we could paint the bottom parts that had been under the pads. We thought this was happening at 2 pm so we were a bit shocked but ready to go. The yard manager, Mr. Sin, is very efficient and very good, but you don’t argue with his decisions. As soon as we were in the slings, we were then told that we would be in the water at 1 pm, not 3 pm. So we all adjusted our time schedules to be ready.

At exactly 1:08 pm the action started. Mark and Luck were on the boat with Oh, Pong, Lok, and myself on the ground. I walked around to the launch area. Earlier in the day I had taken a taxi to the local market to buy good luck flowers to hang on the bow sprit, and Patti on Equus had given us good luck fire crackers to be lit just as the boat hit the water. I hung the flowers on the front of the boat and made sure there was someone in charge of the fire crackers. We had one little glitch as they were bringing the boat out hard stand area. There are concrete cones separating the road from the hardstand area. As Windbird was being brought out of the hardstand area, the lift hit one of the concrete cones and everything came to a standstill. There were lots of shouts but no damage, so the things continued on. From that point on things went smoothly. Windbird went into the water with the sound of 250 fire crackers going off. The man setting off the firecrackers came to me with a ribbon with the number 888. He said we had a very lucky number, so I will keep that ribbon and hope that he is right. Four is my lucky number so I figure 888 is 4+4+4+4+4+4+4+4. Sounds lucky to me.

Mark and Luck moved the boat across the marina to B2, our new home for the next few days. Once we were settled in, the weather decided to let loose and we had another Thailand deluge. Just before the heavens opened, we were able to put up a tarp so some work could be continued. We had hoped to have a celebration with Oh and crew but the weather and other circumstances curbed that. Pong got a call from his wife telling him that his daughter had been taken to the hospital. Oh left with Pong and we will have to wait until tomorrow to hopefully hear that Pong’s daughter is fine.

Luck and Lok stayed onboard to do some of the ‘finishing touches’ and Mark and I worked to get the inside of Windbird a little more organized. We had to call Marine Electronics, the company that installed our new transformer to come check things out. The transformer worked great on the hard, but when we plugged into the dock, we got no power. Marine Electronics responded unbelievably quickly but they are not sure what the problem might be. Mark thinks it has to do with grounding issue, but the investigation of that problem will be continued tomorrow.

Mark and I will head to Ao Chalong tomorrow to check out of Thailand and spend the weekend making sure we are ready to leave here on Tuesday morning. We have the weekend and Monday’s Chinese holiday in which to get ready, but we do think we will be fully ready to leave here on Tuesday morning. We have been in phone contact with Gerry and Donna of Scot Free II and think we will be traveling back to Malaysia in their company. Instead of leaving here and doing an overnight straight for Langkawil we will do day-hops. We will arrive in Langkawi next Friday instead of on Wednesday, but with all the fishing lines and traps between here and there, this sounds like a much safer route.

090402 Day 162 Boat Lagoon, Phuket Thailand Splash Down