Day 105, Year 4: Another Day of Progress
Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Weather: Partly Cloudy and Very Warm
Location: Boat Lagoon Marina, Phuket Island

Our day started off with a great Skype conversation with my friend Linda back in Concord, New Hampshire. At 7:30 this morning when Mark turned on our computer here, back in Concord at 7:30 in the evening, Linda could see that we were online, so she called us. Linda, her husband Michael, and their teen-aged son Garrett visited us in the South Pacific our first year out. At that time Garrett was struggling with a debilitating disease called Dystonia. Since the surgery, he has recovered almost fully
and is actually going to do some competitive rock climbing this spring. It is just unbelievable how well he is doing since his surgery last March. So it was great to talk to Linda, Garrett, and Mike and to catch up on news from back home.

It was another day of great progress on Windbird. The scraping of the hull is virtually done. So Oh’s crew has made fantastic progress. Mark was successful in removing the binnacle and in removing all the hardware from the boom. I sanded the handrails on deck and am now in a quandary as to what to do with them. When we left Boston, I had fifteen coats of varnish on the handrails. That quickly deteriorated and not until today have I actually been successful in removing all those coats of varnish.
Now my quandary is whether to not to varnish the rails again or to just let them silver like the teak on the deck. I’ll have to make the decision tomorrow but right now I am actually leaning toward letting them silver. Trying to keep up with the varnish on those rails is almost impossible.

Our friend Mr. Nop revisited us this morning trying to convince us to go with him for the stainless work. He had some suggestions on how to cut the price by using smaller diameter stainless on some parts. This brought the estimate down to a very good price, but before we make the decision, we are going to go up north to Yacht Haven Marina with him tomorrow afternoon and see some the work he has done. Muzza from Canvas Creations also came to see us this morning to measure for a quote on redoing
the cockpit enclosure. We’ll get that quote on Friday and make a decision on that.

So lots of work is happening on Windbird. We are super pleased with the progress at this point and just hope that things continue like this. We took time in the late afternoon to visit with Robert and Tina of Shirena at the pool and we actually ended up being invited to Shirena for dinner. Robert and Tina will leave here on Monday so we will probably get together a couple times more before they leave.

Life is busy and good here and we are ever grateful for this little air-conditioned studio apartment. We like being close enough to Windbird to oversee the work but being able to retreat to a dust-free, cool apartment.