Day 107, Year 4: Skype Contact with the Concord Yacht Club
Date: Friday, February 6, 2009
Weather: Still Hot and Beautiful
Location: Boat Lagoon Marina, Phuket Island
How much fun it was to see everyone at the monthly Concord Yacht Club gathering this morning! The dinner this month was at the home of our good friends, Helaine and Alan Kanegsberg. Alan set up his computer with an LCD projector so everyone could see us and Alan’s little web cam did an amazing job of capturing the group of thirty. We took some web cam pictures (that we will post tomorrow) and enjoyed the conversation. The internet is truly amazing. Bob and Beth Lux, who circumnavigated in the
pre-internet days, were at the meeting. I’m sure they were thinking about how different things when they went around. Thanks, Alan, for making the connection possible. And Helaine, we sure wish we had been there in person to taste the Hungarian chicken dish you prepared.
The rest of the day was less eventful than the beginning. After our Skype connection, Mark walked over to Windbird. Sanding of the hull was in full swing, so he couldn’t go inside the boat to get his tools. He came back and we walked over to the bank to get the money to pay the down payment on the stainless work we are having done. We also stopped by to pick up the quote on making a new cockpit enclosure. As with the boat painting, the quote was cheaper than the one we had gotten in Langkawi, so we will probably go ahead and have Muzza here at Canvas Creations do the work. The shop is just one flight of stairs down from our apartment, so it will certainly be easy enough to check on the progress. On our way to the bank, we stopped by to see the progress Robyn and Eric are making on Scorpido. They have spent the week putting their newly painted mast back together and it looks great. They will put the stays on this afternoon and the mast will be ready to go back on the boat. They had their boat Awl-gripped (painted) ten years ago and the crew here has made repairs, lightly sanded the whole hull, and waxed her to a bright shine. Scorpido looks great. We can only hope our paint job will look as good in ten years.
When Oh’s crew broke for lunch, Mark and I went to Windbird to take some things off the aft pulpit that should have come off before the sanding started and to get a few things out of the boat. We knew we would only have an hour, so we had made a list and worked fast. Everything on the deck was covered in a fine blue dust, including us when we finished. But I went inside the boat before I got too covered in dust and cleaned out the freezer and refrigerator. It was time to shut those off to reduce power consumption. We have the charger we bought in Singapore, but the controls on it blew the first time we plugged it in. So we have to be in the boat to watch the voltage and shut it off when the charge gets too high. Since we can’t always get into the boat, we decided to put what could from the refrig and freezer in our little apartment refrig and give the rest away. That way there is almost nothing using power, so that won’t be an issue. We grabbed all the bags of hardware that have been taken off Windbird and took those with us so we can clean and polish everything. That way the parts will be ready to put back on as soon as the painting is completed. At 1:30 we went to see Mr. Nop to pay him his deposit and we were amazed that his workers were already cutting pieces of stainless for our new arch and they needed the solar panels immediately so they could fit them on the top of the arch. The solar panels were back at the boat covered in blue dust so I hurried back to clean them. But Nop was faster and sent his crew to get them assuring “Madame” that they will take care of the cleaning. In every case, we have been so impressed with the workmanship here and the speed and care with which things are done.
We then hopped in the truck to go to the shopping center. Just as we started to turn left to go out the drive, I said to Mark that we should turn right and go see if Tina and Robert on Shirena needed anything. One thing led to another and the decision was made to spend the rest of the afternoon enjoying each other’s company, as well as a few other cruisers we haven’t seen since Indonesia, and go to the store in the morning. Tina does need things, so she will go with us then. By the time we headed back to Windbird it was 5:30 so we stopped by Windbird to check on the day’s progress. The sanding with the compressor-powered orbital sanders was completed and Windbird had been washed down. We saw the foreman getting the long boards ready yesterday, so we think they will do the long board manual sanding tomorrow. It won’t be long until Windbird is ready for the first fairing coat of epoxy.
Ken and Jean of Renaissance 2000 are now back at Ao Po but they were at the Boat Lagoon today and suggested that they return in the evening so we could all go to dinner at the Dibuk Restaurant in Old Town Phuket. It is a Thai-French restaurant and the food and the company were both excellent. We did more socializing then work today, but we have been working pretty hard so it was a nice change of pace.
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| From 090206 Day107 CYC Skype Call |
