Day 130, Year 4: A Month in Boat Lagoon
Date: Sunday, March 1, 2009
Weather: Back to Normal-Sunny and Beautiful
Location: Boat Lagoon Marina, Phuket Island

Just after midnight our cell phone rang with a message to tell us our cell phone card had expired. We had plenty of time left, so that seemed weird. Then late this morning Mark was on the computer trying to take another look at flights home and a message came up saying our time on the wireless provider was expired. Then the room phone rang and it was the office wanting to know if we were planning on checking out today or if we wanted to renew our contract. Okay. We got the message. Time slipped up on us. We have been here for a whole month and everything was expiring at once. We then realized that our rental jeep would need to be returned as well. We got out the contract and read that we have until tomorrow at 2 pm to return the car, so we changed our plans to make use of the vehicle while we have it. We will not renew that rental as we will be spending most of the next month putting Windbird back together and won’t have time to go anywhere. So we hopped in the jeep, went to the marina office to buy another month of wireless, went to the hotel office to sign a contract for another month, stopped at the corner Seven Eleven to get a new phone card, and then headed south. We planned to stop at a hardware store to get some paint thinner to soak some of the screws and bolts from Windbird that are heavily laden with old caulk. We then planned to go to the south end of the island just to see it. We haven’t been all the way down to Nai Harn Bay yet and people say it is beautiful.

So we stopped at the hardware store to get the paint thinner and while I was paying for it, Mark was installing the new phone card. Yesterday we got an SMS text message on our cell phone from Tory and Piet Hein of Double Dutch saying they would be coming back to Phuket today (from Bangkok) and suggesting that we get together this week before they take off for South Africa. We messaged back saying any night this week would be great, but now we realized we wouldn’t have a car, so we called them to see if it would be possible to get together this afternoon. They were just arriving in Phuket by bus when we called so we said we’d meet in Ao Chalong in a couple of hours. This would still give us time to do some sight seeing, but once again practicality took over and we stopped to check prices of dehumidifiers at the huge HomeWorks store. They have zillions of air conditioners and air purifiers, but no dehumidifiers. While we were in the area, we drove across the street to Central Festival, the modern mall, to do some clothes shopping. Our sight seeing time was spent shopping, but that’s okay. There will be another opportunity.

We spent a fabulous late afternoon/evening with Piet Hein and Tory of Double Dutch. While we were eating dinner, Donna and Gerry of Scot Free II showed up. You just never know who you are going to see where out here. We really enjoyed the evening in the company of ‘double’ good friends and then came home to enjoy a video Skype call with Heather, Jed, and Sam. This was a great start to a new week.

090301 Sam on Skype