Day 100, Year 4: Happy, Happy
Date: Friday, January 30, 2009s
Weather: Hot, Hot, Hot in the Boat Lagoon
Location: Boat Lagoon Marina, Phuket Island
Yea! We finally found a place to live, in our original price range, in the Boat Lagoon about 300 meters from Windbird. It is a studio apartment, so it is very small, but we will be able to do some cooking once we go out and buy a hot plate. More importantly, we will be able to stay cool. Last night on Windbird was honestly unbearable. Mark moved from the aft cabin to the main cabin and said it was a little better, but I stayed in the aft cabin and even with two fans blowing directly on me, I
was just too hot to sleep. Plus there were mosquitoes. We had left the boat open until just after dark and that was a bad decision. The mosquitos came in at dusk and lurked in the darkness until I went to bed. Then they decided to make me their target.
But tonight we are in air-conditioned heaven. After working inside a 95 degrees F Windbird all day, we are loving the retreat to this cool little apartment. Things are going well on Windbird, but each task takes so much energy in this heat. The mast is down and all of the lines have been removed and are here on our little balcony waiting to be cleaned. Oh is proving to be even better than we had hoped and his work crew of four young men all seen highly competent. We had not loosened the top-stays
when the crane arrived today which was a big mistake. It took Mark and Oh’s crew sometime to get these loosened while the crane waited. But the crew persisted and got the task accomplished. Tomorrow Mark and I will remove the wind vane steering from the stern and I know that will be a very hot job. We have to dismantle the bed in the aft cabin and remove all lathing strips and wallboard in order to get to the nuts and bolts to loosen the wind vane steering. Then we have to remove the ceiling in the main cabin to get at the nuts and bolts to take off the hardware on the cabin top. And then we have to start taking all the hardware off the mast. We have plenty to keep us busy while Oh and his crew erect the tent and get ready to sand. So life is good here and things are going well.
We are also very happy that Justin and Jo have found us a place to rent when we arrive in New Mexico. That is the cause of the second “happy” in the log’s name. We are happy to have a place to live here while we work on Windbird, and we are very happy to have a place to stay in Santa Fe when we arrive back in the US. Life is good.
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| 090130 Day 100 Boat Lagooon, Phuket, Thailand–Taking Mast Down |
