Day 94, Year 4: Windbird’s Getting a Face Lift
Date: Saturday, January 24, 2009
Weather: Sunny with Clouds; Late Afternoon Sprinkles
Location: Ao Po Grand Marina, Phuket Island, Thailand

Heather, Jed, and Sam made it back to Boston faster than I could get the sheets and towels washed and dried. Heather called on her cell phone to tell us they arrived. It was not a restful trip home as Sam chose not to sleep much of the time, but they did make it. They arrived late Friday night and were spending the night in Boston before driving down to the Cape. They said there was snow everywhere and that they desperately missed Thailand’s beautiful weather.

We have gotten ourselves into gear after our wonderful vacation with Heather, Jed, and Sam, and we have actually found that we can get Windbird painted here in Thailand cheaper than in Langkawi in Malaysia. The painter came this morning to give us an estimate and we liked what we heard. So we called the Boat Lagoon to see if we can come in there this week and get the work started. As far as we can tell from the phone conversation, the Boat Lagoon has room for us starting on this Thursday. We
will have to double check on this, but it sounds like we will leave here on Tuesday and sail down toward the Boat Lagoon. We will position ourselves to enter the lagoon at high tide on Thursday morning. The painter, whose name is Oh, will then build a tent around Windbird and start the work within a week after our arrival. Windbird is a twenty-seven year-old fiberglass boat that has never been painted, so she is in desperate need of this face lift. Judy and David of Freebird were out here looking
at the marina today, and they had all sorts of information for us. Evidently we can get an air-conditioned condo apartment at Boat Lagoon for under $300 per month, so we will probably do that rather than try to live on a boat that is being sanded and painted over and over. The boat will get two undercoats of epoxy and then be sanded, then two more coats of epoxy and sanded, and then three coats of Awlgrip with sanding between each coat. In order to keep the sanding dust out of the boat, everything
has to be taped shut, so living aboard would be really difficult. According to Judy and David, Eric of Scorpido has been renting an apartment and finding it to be a great arrangement while working on a boat. It is REALLY hot here, so an air conditioned apartment with a swimming pool sounds great for the short term. It can take up to two months to get the painting done, depending on the weather, so we might become land-bound for quite some time. Once our work here is done, we will return to Langkawi
in Malaysia where we will leave the boat while we return home, but it looks like mid-April is the earliest we will be able to leave. That will get us to Santa Fe just in time for the arrival of the New Mexico grand child, so the timing is good.

In the meantime, things are gearing up here at the Ao Po Marina for the Phang Nga Regatta. The boats should start arriving tomorrow, with the bulk of them coming in on Monday. Now that the laundry is done, I am spending my time working on getting photos ready to post on the website. So for those of you who are asking, “Where are the photos?”-They should be coming your way soon.