Day 30, Year 4: Day of Contemplation
Date: Friday, November 21, 2008
Weather: Overcast Day with Rain Early; Slight Clearing Late Afternoon
Location: Kuah, Pulau Langkawi, Malaysia
It was a day of contemplation. Early in the day, the canvas guy, Ben, came to the boat to look at our Doyle Stack Pack that covers our mainsail and to look at our cockpit enclosure. He can remake the stack pack for us with a few modifications to make it even nicer. But he can’t do this until February, so that piece of information made our final decision that we will be keeping Windbird here until this time next year. One decision made.
He then looked at our cockpit enclosure and his first comment was that whomever made it spared no expense. It was done right, but he pointed out the fact that we have a huge investment in stainless steel framing for the enclosure. If we build a hard dodger, all of that stainless has to be removed. So a hard dodger might not be our answer. We are still contemplating this one, but as of today we are leaning toward a new cockpit enclosure made just like the one we currently have. Oakum Bay in Marblehead,
Massachusetts made the current enclosure and we have been so thankful to them so many times for the great joy they did. Ben thinks he can the same job with a few improvements, so that is probably what we will end up doing.
The next stage of contemplation was about Christmas. We took our computers and went to the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club where we can be on the internet. It was a busy, busy place today as a major sailing race is coming in tomorrow. Actually, many of the boats are already here and today the place was abuzz with people. If there is enough wind, tomorrow’s leg of the race will take place here in the bay, but if there is no wind here, the race will take place outside the harbor. The bar and restaurant
were so busy today that they wouldn’t let us plug in our computers there, so we found a place on the second floor with a great view of the marina and bay and plopped ourselves down there for the entire afternoon. We contemplated the option of Christmas gifts for our kids, made some decisions, and got things ordered. We also made final orders of small boat items that we will have Kevin and Claire bring to us when they come in December. We still have a few loose ends, but we are much closer than
we were this time yesterday.
The thing we are still contemplating is whether or not to buy a new dinghy engine. We have our old Suzuki that just needs a little work on the carburetor, and we have the Tohatsu we bought from Freebird when they moved up to the 15-horse Yamaha. It looks worn, but it has been doing a great job for us. If we bought the new Yamaha, we would have to find a way to sell the two old ones and I’m just not sure that is going to happen here. So we’ll keep thinking on that one. It is just one of those
deals that is hard to pass on.
Tomorrow we will do more shopping in Kuah, top up on groceries, and get ready to move to Rebak Marina. It is on an offshore island, but they do provide a free ferry shuttle to the mainland a certain times during the week and then a van here to Kuah for shopping. There is no public transportation on the island, so you either use the free Rebak service or you rent a car or hire a taxi. We’ll start off with the essentials and see how it goes from there. Since we will scraping, sanding, and painting
the bottom next week, we aren’t going to want to stop to come in to Kuah to shop. Once the bottom is done, we can start exploring the island here. There is another major harbor with another marina complex, the tourist beach area, an aerial tram ride to the top of the highest mountains, waterfalls, and lots of other hidden gems to be discovered.
