Day 147, Year 4: Running About
Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Weather: Threatening Clouds and Haze Mixed with Sunshine
Location: Boat Lagoon Marina, Phuket Island
The day started with a visit to the Immigration Office in Phuket Town to try and get an additional Visa extension. The Captain said no go, but we were sent to the Marine Office. A few minutes later we were called back to the main office to see the Captain, and this time she said we could have a one-week extension, giving us until March 30 to leave. The cost for this is 1900 Baht each, but since we can do a Visa run to Burma for less than that, including all fees, and get at least fifteen days,
we didn’t accept the offer because Mark is just not sure we can be ready to leave here by March 30. So we are going to go back on Friday with a letter from Oh and hope that gets us fifteen days, but if not, we will be taking a weekend trip north to Burma. That could be a great trip, but with so much to be done here in so little time, it is hard to think about taking a whole day off. It was not until this morning that Mark realized just how few days we do have left before we need to leave here
and get back to Langkawi. If we are not out of here by Tuesday, March 31, we won’t have another chance until April 7 because of the state of the tides. We are flying out of Penang in Langkawi on April 16 which means we need to sail the boat south, get it ready to leave, and get ourselves from Langkawi to Penang by April 15. So the race is on.
The rainy season has set in with daily threats of rain, so even though the mast and boom are now ready to be painted, Luck is not sure when it can happen. Today the mist and dark clouds hung around in the morning and then returned in the afternoon. It looked like it could rain at any moment. So painting could happen as early as tomorrow morning, depending on the weather. I’m hoping for a blue skies and sunshine day so that the painting can be done before the high winds that are reportedly coming
in for the weekend arrive. We did find out this afternoon that the hatches are ready to be installed. We weren’t sure the final clear coat over the aluminum paint was done, but Oh told us this afternoon that both coats happened on the same day. Evidently one coat must follow the other within a prescribed time frame. So our tomorrow will be spent installing hatches, and hopefully the painting of the mast and boom will be done.
Another huge chunk of our day was spent searching for speakers to fit in the openings in what I call the cockpit dashboard. It took a bit of searching, but we finally successful in finding Marine JBL’s that fit perfectly. Well, the fit perfectly after Mark cut out some of the fiberglass enclosure that encased the old speakers. The old speakers were okay but the speaker covers had cracked and pieces were missing. Not a good look to go with Windbird’s new facade.
Tonight we drove further south on the island than we have been before to have dinner with friends of Larry. Larry is from Wolfeboro, New Hampshire by way of Michigan. He sailed here by going through the Mediterranean, heading south through the Red Sea, and then east across the Indian Ocean. He now works in the East Marine Chandlery here at the Boat Lagoon and he has a huge collection of friends. He had arranged for us to have dinner for Jim and Pat, good sailing friends from Canada that now live
here. They both worked for the Canada Film Board before retiring in the 1980’s and starting their cruising life around the world. They bought their home here in 2005. They can never own the land since they are not Thai nationals, but their home is absolutely beautiful. We had a wonderful dinner on their deck by the pool and truly enjoyed the conversations. We didn’t get home until almost midnight, so it is certainly time to say goodnight.
