Day 73, Year 4: Me Worry
Date: Saturday, January 3, 2009
Weather: Windy, Overcast, but No Rain
Location: Ao Po Grand Marina, Phuket Island, Thailand
Okay. We are STILL here at the marina and have now decided that we will stay here until Heather, Jed, and Sam arrive early in the morning (1:00 am) on Friday. Of course, that could change, but leaving today was just too difficult. We have no dodger or bimini as we removed them for varnishing, so leaving in windy conditions with slightly rough seas could have led to a wet ride. And the weather was good for varnishing this morning, so we took advantage of that instead of heading out. So Windbird
is still tied to land for now.
I spent my morning sanding and varnishing while Mark installed a new bilge pump, took out the old sound insulation in the engine room which was starting to fall apart, re-tightened the bolts on the coupling that connects the transmission to the prop shaft, topped off the water in the starting battery, and started putting up the lifeline netting that we are installing to keep our grandson Sam onboard and not falling overboard. Windbird is being transformed into a kid boat. We have watched other
cruisers with wee ones with admiration and now we will be the ones with a wee one. The kid sailors out here all seem to do fine, so hopefully Sam will do the same. We are just so excited about Heather, Jed, and Sam’s visit. It is now a six day countdown. We also visited our friends Judy and Howard on Laelia today. They are one of the few cruisers here at Ao Po and it was good to reconnect with them. They are getting ready to head across the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea, so we hope they have
uneventful trip.
Foremost in our thoughts tonight are Kevin and Claire. This is why “me worry.” Where are they? They promised to email as soon as they returned home, but we have heard nothing. When we email them, we get the “out of office” response. We will wait until a little later tonight and then try to call their home phone. That will be early morning in Virgina. They live in a house with other people, so hopefully someone will answer our call and have more information than we do. In the meantime, Kevin
and Claire, we hope you are home safe and sound. And not having too hard a time adjusting.
