Lots of chemicals

Todays main activity was popping into town and getting some hard to find chemicals. I bought:

2 litres of Acetone, for cleaning surfaces before applying epoxy glue
1 litre of MEK, not sure what that is for, but heard it’s very useful to have. I think it’s a solvent for epoxy, which means it can dissolve my boat, hmmm.
1 litre of Isopropyl, or something like that, another good cleaner, I think its like alcohol. Chemistry isn’t my strong point
1kg of Oxalic Acid crystals, these dissolve in warm water to make an excellent cleaner for most things, but it works very well in cleaning teak.

The total price for this was £10, can’t complain. I bought this from a shop run by a rather famous local man called Mr Ong, the chemical man. He is 91 and is thinking of retiring soon. I had a brief chat with him in the shop. It’s amazing what you can buy here.  Later I bought some sheets of hard rubber/plastic, used for cutting soles for shoes from a shoe repair and leather supplier. This will fit under the bowsprit nicely and protect the sprit and the galvanising on the anchor, again, just £2.

I bought some plastic sheeting in a shop and asked for a discount as it was a bit shabby, the guy dragged his abacus over and used it to knock 10% off, very impressive how fast he used it.

abacusI use Uber to get around, they are very good, cheap and most of the drivers are ethnic Chinese so their English is generally better than the ethnic Malaysians. As was usual I had to explain everything about the boat and our plans, and as usual, the drivers are amazed we are sailing around the world, after lots of questions this driver asked me if I was a proper sailor man, I replied yes, I suppose so, to which he launched into singing “I’m popeye the sailor man, I live in ….”. When he extracted from me that I was doing this trip with my girlfriend, he started exclaiming over and over, “So Romantic, So romantic”. I would have said, stop here, drop me off here, yes, this motorway flyover is just fine. However it’s difficult to change your destination on Uber, even harder not to give your driver 5 stars after the trip, just in case you get him on the way home.

hanging
Another place with hanging things

Later back at the boat I pulled the aircon off the deck and cleaned up, we will get this deck looking fit for purpose soon.

Tonight we went for dinner at Supertanker, a giant Chinese / Thai foodcourt. Erik drove us there and I think Kathy enjoyed it. I love the place, great food, dirt cheap and a lovely busy but friendly atmosphere. I had a tasty chocolate and banana pancake for pudding from a vendor who is famous for his wares.
supertsnker

General chores tomorrow, specifically the sails and control lines and the water tank guages.

Paul C