Day 95, Year 4: Calm Before the Storm
Date: Sunday, January 25, 2009
Weather: Beautiful, Sunny Day
Location: Ao Po Grand Marina, Phuket Island, Thailand
It was a quiet day here at the Ao Po Grand Marina, but tomorrow the 50-60 racing boats that are in the Phang Nga Regatta should arrive and things will liven up a bit. The tents have been set up on the marina grounds and a few boats have arrived, but things are still quiet here. But by this time tomorrow night, things should be in full swing here. In the meantime, today we had the guys from Precision Shipwright come out to give us an estimate on building an arch on the back of Windbird to hold
the solar panels and wind generator plus install stainless handrails from the gates to the back of the boat. They will let us know on Tuesday what that might cost. Otherwise, Mark and I spent a quiet day working on our computers. Mark is searching for the ultimate low-cost tickets to get us home in April and I am working on getting photos edited and organized so they can be posted on the website. We have started the uploading process, but it is very slow. We’re hoping to have all the photos
from Heather, Jed, and Sam’s visit on the website by the end of the day tomorrow, but that could be a little optimistic. We shall see.
We took a break in the late afternoon and went up to the Chandara Resort to have sundowners with Jean and Ken of Renaissance 2000. They are headed to South Africa this year but will return to Langkawi in Malaysia to do the final provisioning before taking off in late February or early March. They have done their food provisioning here, but the trip to Langkawi is for the duty-free alcohol. A case of beer here in Thailand costs $20 US but is half that in Langkawi. The same is true for wine. The
cheapest bottle of wine here costs $20-$35 US whereas in Langkawi you can get some good wines for $10 a bottle. So it is worth the trip, especially since there is no chance for reprovisioning in the Indian Ocean except for the Maldives and the Seychelles. Renaissance 2000 will spend two months in the Chagos and there are absolutely no supplies of any kind there. So stocking up here is a must. On Windbird, however, we are thinking in the opposite direction. We will try to use up all our stores
in the next two months while living on land so that when we leave Windbird in April she will be empty.
We’re going to try a Skype call to Heather, Jed, and Sam tonight. It will be their Sunday morning and we’re anxious to hear how they are doing. And then we will try to call Justin and Jo tomorrow morning, which will be their Sunday evening. Otherwise, things here on Windbird seem very quiet-a little too quiet. We got used to having a two year-old onboard and without Sam life seems just a little too settled.
