Today started with the early (8:30) arrival of Chris, the rigger. He scooted up the mast and took measurements of all the rigging, that’s the wires that hold up the mast. There’s a lot on this boat, I think 13 in all. they all need to be replaced to get insurance for the boat.
Tim worked out that we could get a ferry to Thailand and have a couple of hours there, it’s really not very far from us, 1 hour on a fast ferry and £6 each way. Also I could buy an electric sander there, as the shops are all shut here with it being a Friday. As the morning progressed we were getting more and more results coming in from the UK referendum, I was very very disappointed at how it was going. By lunchtime it was all to clear.
It was a pleasant trip to Satun, I bought a sander and glasspaper, I had to get some Tahi Baht from a cash machine, everything is now about 10% more expensive for me because of the leave vote, hopefully that will improve a bit.
After a couple of hours looking around the shops we got the ferry back. I think we probably spent more time queuing to get our passport stamped in Malaysia and Thailand than we did walking around the town there.
Once back at the boat we had a quick swim to cool down and met up with Touch from the marina in Penang, He drives a big 40m motor cruiser (Millionaire boat, as my kids would call it) for it’s owner and had motored to Langkawi for a couple of weeks.
We decided to cook on board, but the Gas solenoid that shuts off the gas had developed a fault and I couldn’t fix it in time for Tim’s preparation, so we fell back to a Plan B where we cook on the outside barbecue.
After a fast familiarisation course (learning how to turn it on) we were once again ‘cooking with gas’ and Tim rustled up a lovely Omelette containing all the veg we had left.
Tomorrow I might be able to sand down the rubbing strake ready for it’s first coat of varnish. Will need to buy some turps or white spirit first.
Paul C.