Day 104, Year 4: Great Progress Made Today
Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Weather: Partly Cloudy and Humid
Location: Boat Lagoon Marina, Phuket Island

We had a great day today. Oh’s crew made more progress than we expected and so did Mark and I. Two-thirds of the starboard side of Windbird has been stripped down to the top layer of polyester resin which is a dark blue. None of us is sure what this level is but it is at least beyond where there is any crazing in the gel coat. Tomorrow the crew will finish the starboard side and continue on to the port side. Before the stripping started, the crew worked on getting the tent over Windbird secured.
We are very pleased with the progress and the quality of the work. Oh comes around a couple of times a day to check on the progress, but there is young man whose name we do not know that seems to be the foreman. He speaks a little English and he is a really hard worker. He is always at the boat when we arrive around 8:30 am and he leaves around 5:30 PM. He had a motorcycle accident a couple of days ago and scraped off a great deal of the skin on his starboard side, but he seems to be healing nicely. Mark and I also made unbelievable progress today. The “sissy bars”, those stainless steel bars on each side of the mast, have been removed, the arch that supports the boom crutch is off, the hatches are all ready to be removed, and the bronze port trim rings are off. This reminds us that there are ports, and ports, and ports-port that you come in to, the left side of your boat, and the window openings in your boat. Someone needs to do a little research on that one and explain to me why all of these are “ports.”

Inside Windbird looks like a disaster area. I cannot imagine, even in my wildest imagination, living aboard Windbird while all of this work is going on. Every thing from the deck is now inside the boat and there is very little room to move about. So this little studio apartment we are in is looking better all the time. This evening we discovered that we have a television and actually watched some BBC news. It has been a long time since we have listened to or watched world news, so we will probably
take advantage of this and actually catch up on what is happening in the world I’m not sure that is a good thing, but probably necessary. We can float around out here and ignore what is happening in the world, but once in a while we need a dose of reality. Or is this reality?

Tomorrow we hope to remove the steering column in the cockpit. This is called a binnacle. Ours is made of aluminum and Mark painted it with great care in 2002. Unfortunately, where the stainless steels bolts go through the aluminum base and where the stainless steel base of the compass touches the aluminum, the paint has bubbled. Oh saw this and offered to paint it for us for free if we were willing to remove it. It is not an easy job as it is the steering column, but tomorrow we will remove
that. It will probably be an all day job. In the late afternoon we are going to meet Robert and Tina on Shirena in the pool at Spice Island. This is the restaurant/bar/pool on their side of the marina. This probably means we will also eat dinner out at Spice Island, but for the second night in a row we cooked on our little deck and that is working out great. I prepare and wash dishes and Mark cooks the dinner. While all of this is happening, I also do the laundry from the day. So at the end of the evening, we have clean clothes and full stomachs and are sitting in air-conditioned luxury. Not sure what more we can ask?

090203 Day 104 Boat Lagoon, Phuket, Thailand–Disaster Area Inside Windbird