Jeff's Log ~ Friday, February 15, 2008 7 57.681N 98 23.287E Boat Lagoon Marina, Phuket, Thailand

It has been a very busy and tiring week. The work on Pipe Dream is being done with great enthusiasm and quality. I think that we have the bow sprit water entry completely solved. The guys made an inverted cone shaped piece to fit inside the bow sprit tube, which we also extended about an inch forward. There is soft rubber on the inside face of the bow sprit collar that now meets the cone that they built. I am going to have a sleeve made to go over the top of everything and clamp on to the sprit and the tube extension. I have the steering pedestal in pieces and am replacing the shifter.

It is now Sunday night, I went to the wet suit manufacturer and the will have my sleeve done on Monday evening. I have a rigger coming on Monday morning to see if he can help me with the backstay radar mount. So far, nobody wants to work on that. I did talk to the stainless steel guy, and he can cut off the bent stanchions and weld new bottoms on. I decided to have the boat buffed and polished while out, and that is coming along nicely. I picked up the new awning while in Chalong, and it is really nice. It now looks like it’s for a yacht, instead of something that was salvaged from the garage. It’s made of white sunbrella, and is reinforced where stresses get put on it. It will be cooler than the old sail cloth awning too.

Today I kind of took it easy. I worked on the generator until the heat came up, and then just took it easy. I’ve only been up and down the ladder four times today, and one of those was to walk away from the boat and go for a walk to relax for a while. I found a little fishing camp where some Thai fishermen were working on their nets. I sat down in the shade of a large tree and just hung out for a while. It was a really nice spot, and I did doze off for a short nap. When I went back to Pipe Dream, the sun was going down and things were cooling off a bit. Where they have buffed the deck house, the sun was glistening off as it set. The boat is going to look like new when they are finished.

THREE MORE DAYS!!!!!! Clara will arrive. I can hardly wait. By the time y’all read this, her visit will have come and gone. I’m all pins and needles with anticipation.