Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Captain's blog Oct - Nov

End of last month and this has gone cooped up in port. The rain season seems to give up late this year as it has been raining cats and dogs every other day it seems. As of writing this the weather is sunny but dark clouds are swirling on the horizon.

Anyways, since our return from Langkawi to Yacht Haven Phuket we started doing some serious maintenance (jobs never cease on a boat) and I hired Carpenter's, Day worker's and Welder's.

Carpentry is done on outer decks exchanging rotten wood on structures, we found a new Contractor in Boat Lagoon trying to do a name for themselves.

As I have only one Deckie I got one familiar Day worker to work with him - 2-part cleaning, sanding, teak oiling and varnishing is the order of the day for them.

Finally, our trusted welder K. Chatchai came onboard to install a new bucket strainer to our A/C plant.

All jobs are almost finished and paid off and now we're waiting for orders if we get to go and pick up guests in Andaman Islands or not. The weather being like this I don't look forward to it, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do (Clint Eastwood).

For social events we have been quite outgoing I think, on the Sun 2nd I took all crew out for visiting the Ton Sai waterfall (In Thalang going S, turn left at the crossing, continue until end of road). The waterfall had very little water cascading down which I considered odd thinking of the amounts of rain we had gotten here, I hate to think when it really cascades of how much rain that would require... The waterfall is said to have 9 floors so me and Rajaram, my Deckie, left other crew to enjoy the waterfall, clambered up the slopes and started following the stream. In the beginning the going was tough with fallen trees and dense brush covering up the trail but eventually we found a real trail and followed signs for abt 45mins and thought better to turn back. We followed another trail back and almost missed the end of the waterfall but we did some shortcuts and emerged at the parking lot. After this we all gathered in the pick-up truck and drove off to Nai Yang beach to have a late Sunday lunch at the beach. We were joined by Jessica who just landed and was back from her vacation in Philippines. The lunch was very delicious Thai seafood fare and once all had been satisfied we packed up and went back to the ship.

Lunch @ Naiyang beach

As we have been so long without guests I decided that I'll invite some friends onboard for an Indian dinner and let the girls do some serving and get some action. Eventually I managed to get together a team of 8 persons, our agent Gordon, Toby, Nong, Captain Alistair and Michael Bosch + wife Bo. On friday 7th we all, including me and C/E Vivek, gathered for sundowners around our bar, after that we went to the dining saloon.

As starters we were treated with a "soup-shot", very delicious. For main course we had paratas with 3 kind of curries and rice to those who wanted. As dessert was rice pudding Indian style. Sundowners, dinner and dessert was all watered with Company products, namely Kingfisher beer, Carano Ferrari wines and Whyte & Mackay whisky. Next monday I received "thank you" emails so apparently all went home happy and did not suffer from Delhi-belly. I must also mention that our Cook Richard was after the dinner called out from his lair and received a round of applause for the dinner he had prepared for us.



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