Jeff's Log & Clara's Trip ~ Wednesday, February 27, 2008 (This is a long blog)

Well everyone, Clara has come and gone, and the time spent with her is priceless. Waiting for her at the airport was nerve wracking. The airport here is very secure. They won’t even let you in the building without a pass. Her flight arrived on time, but it was just about an hour later when I saw her face. I don’t really know what I did when I saw her, But she said I was Jumping and smiling. Can you believe that???
Things happened so quick after that, the time is sort of blurred in my mind. We had to stop at boat lagoon so that I could pick up clothes and stuff, and I think we went to coconut bar. I was just amazed that I finally could hug and kiss her that a lot of other stuff just kind of happened with me being oblivious. My friends had a dinner part her first night in town. We were able to spend a wonderful evening chatting and Clara finally met some of the people I’ve been telling her about.

Ood the owner of coconuts put us up in her bungalow for the length of Clara’s stay. Our room had a balcony with a table and chairs overlooking a large coy pond with a nice waterfall, and a large bathroom with a cold shower. The house was built with individual water heaters for every shower. The only problem with that is the amount of amperage needed to power the water heaters. As it turns out, we were only there for three nights, the first, second and the last, so cold showers was really no big deal, as all nights we were pretty exhausted .

Clara could not believe the traffic, and now I’m sure she understands why I don’t want to ride a motorbike. We drove all around the island on Thursday and saw some pretty sights. At the Kata beach overlook, I posed with a sea eagle and Clara could take my picture for a hundred baht. The bird was really pretty, but instead of clipping its wings, it looked like they just ripped the feathers out. We went to the light house up on the cape to watch the sun set. At the lighthouse there was a big Buddha shrine, and people have brought thousands of elephant statues and ringed the entire shrine with elephants. The lighthouse itself is a shrine, and has an elephant on each side. It is covered in gold leaf, and is the fanciest lighthouse that I have ever seen. There had to be two or three thousand people there that afternoon. It was an official Buddhist holiday, so a lot of people were off work. They came by the bus load. The sunset was rather plain, as the western sky was cloudy, so we left before the sun was down. We escaped the parking lot quickly, finished our tour, and headed home. We were going to stop for a drink, but there was no alcohol being sold because of Buddha holiday.

That night on the way to Ood’s bungalow, we stopped to get some take-out food. We went to a place that Tu, our driver, recommended. It was a little neighborhood Thai restaurant, and no one spoke even a hint of English. We ordered some food and sodas to go. I saw the waitress open the sodas, and went to stop her, but she ran in the back and came out with the sodas with ice in a plastic bag with a straw. I had seen that before, but didn’t realize what it was. Clara got a good laugh over that and took pictures of her bag-o-soda. We ended up trading dinners because her chicken was too spicy. That was in a plastic bag too, and rubber banded closed like a goldfish, air and all. The rice was wrapped in a piece of paper. The fried rice was in a Styrofoam container.

We went to Bangkok the third day she was here which was Friday. From the airport, we went straight to the American Embassy to renew my passport. At the American embassy, nobody that has initial contact with people speaks English. We were sent on a wild goose chase, until Clara saw a Gentleman who looked like he spoke English. His name was Philip if I remember correctly, and he escorted us to the proper place. The passport office was closing for lunch when we arrived, so he made a suggestion as to where to go for a bite to eat. I asked if he would accompany us for lunch and he agreed. We went across the busy street and had lunch at a rather classy fast food restaurant and he was very pleasant company. It turns out that he’s from Wisconsin (what are the odds) he and his wife have traveled all over the world for their respective jobs and he told us some great stories of where they have lived and the experiences they have had. After lunch we went to the passport office and took care of that. The 24 hour service is no more because of our wonderful homeland security, so in two weeks I have to fly back to pick up my passport. The airlines must be happy about that.

The rest of the time in Bangkok was a very wonderful vacation. Our room was on the 21st floor of a nice hotel, and the staff could not have been nicer. The pool was on the 14th floor, and there was a small bar there. Our second day Saturday in Bangkok, I slept in a bit, and Clara went for a walk and visited the pool. She made friends with the staff at the pool bar, and we were treated like royalty there from then on. There was a young man named Kai that watched over us and made sure we were comfortable. We even were served alcohol on Election Day, and plenty of peanuts too!

On Saturday afternoon, we took the el train to the MBK shopping mall which is very very large, and went to the sixth floor which is the souvenir floor and shopped a bit. It is like let’s make a deal, and I had a pretty good time trying to get extras thrown in. On the way home, we got off at the right stop, but missed a road that we were supposed to turn down, and ended up walking about sixty two miles to get back, and then took a cab the rest of the way. Just kidding about the sixty two miles, but it was a hike. We knew where we had to go, we just couldn’t get there.

While we were on our hike, there was a man who came up behind us and introduced himself. He was head of security at the US embassy, and wanted to say hello. We walked with him and chatted. Thai people are just so friendly, it’s incredible.

That night we went on a dinner cruise up the river on a large boat. It was really nice with a lot of sushi and sashimi, along with Thai and western food. It was good to have wasabi clear out my nasal passages. We met a couple from England in the minibus on the way to the boat. Ruth and Neal were a lot of fun, and we went out with them to the seedy side of town after the cruise. We fed an elephant and walked through the busiest sleaze district that I ever saw. The streets were lined with vendors, and we did get a few souvenirs.

On Sunday morning we took the Buddha and palace tour. We saw lots and lots of Buddha’s. One was solid gold and weighed 55 tons. One was 46 meters long and covered in gold leaf. Another one was made of solid jade and wore a winter coat. There were many others, and we got bits and pieces of a story that included demons and magic monkeys. Different strokes for different folks, I believe. I was amazed at the ridiculous amounts of money that is spent on Buddha, when the country is so poor. Anyone that knows Clara knows she HATES to walk barefoot… boy was she in for a surprise of a lifetime when just about everywhere we went she had to take off her shoes. I even took some pictures to prove that she did indeed go barefoot.

We spent the last day Monday in Bangkok relaxing at the pool with our friend Kai. He kept running to make sure we had everything that we needed. He does not walk any where. Always at a trot.

Another thing that got my attention was that the flights were an hour long, and we got meals going both ways. Every seat had a pillow when we got on the plane, and there were more than enough flight attendants to see to everyone’s needs. They did not have beer or drinks, but more than enough coffee, tea and juice or water to go around. They had blankets too. Makes me wonder about the airlines in America. When boarding and disembarking, everyone gets the wah and sawadeeka (Thai greeting) from the flight crew.

On her last day here in Thailand we went to the beach for a couple of hours. The water is so clear and the sand so incredibly soft Clara couldn’t get over how beautiful everything was. It was a wonderful way to spend our last few hours together.

I think I’ve about covered it.

Today is Thursday, February 28th and Pipe Dream went back in the water. I have been busy with the surveyor, Pro Yachting, and the seat cushion guy, as well as getting the new shift control installed so that I could run the boat to her slip. Just as the travel lift got to the boat this afternoon, the skies opened up and it poured rain. I had to disconnect the forestay in the rain and was completely soaked. I rode the boat on the travel lift, and we got put back into the water. She fired right up and ran very nicely. I backed out of the haul-out well and when I went to go forward, the feathering prop was a little sluggish. I had thought about that, however, and left some extra room for error. I bounced it in and out of gear a couple of times, and it started working properly. I have a slip for the night, and tomorrow I move to the t-head. It sure does feel good to be on the water again. . Nomow, I have pictures of earth for you, I will send them in the next day or two.

It sure was great having Clara here, and I get all warm and fuzzy feeling when I think about her. That was, without a doubt, the nicest week that I have had since leaving the USA.

To see pictures click on Photobucket top left side of page

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.