Archive for October, 2010

Year of the Rat?

Saturday, October 30th, 2010

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The Chinese think we are now in the Year of the Tiger. I think they may be wrong.

At least here in Phuket we feel it must be the year of the rat. Some of our Face Book friends may remember the scene I faced when I opened our storage locker after our return from Europe. Three rats were caught in my glue trap.

A few weeks later, with the yacht still on dry land in the yard subject to upgrading work, I found this rope, below, in our sail locker on board. It’s an unused sheet, chewed through in many places. Also one of the sail bags had a large hole. But the discoveries didn’t end here.

Sometimes when we leave the yacht for longer periods I have left the main sail (and mizzen) on the boom protected by the canvas cover, thinking that it actually is a better place in stead of folding the sail into a bag. We have never had any problems with that other than sometimes bees build nests inside. This time we were up for a big surprise. There were 3 large holes in the thick (8 oz) Dacron fabric, clearly the mark of rats.

So as a warning to fellow cruisers, I’m giving you a heads up for this potential problem. This sail was almost 19 years old, with 60.000nm of service, and I had been thinking of retiring it anyway, so it was not a big loss. But what if it would have been a brand new one? The price of the new sail is 3.500 USD.

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Living in the yards

Wednesday, October 27th, 2010

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We are presently in the Boat Lagoon hard standing area in Phuket, Thailand. Since we started our serious world cruising, in 1992, we have been hauling out Scorpio in 17 different shipyards or marinas – in almost as many countries. Only once have we visited the same yard twice (this was in Deltaville, Virginia, USA). Every time we have to go through the same process: evaluate the shipyard/marina, find the reliable contractors in various technical areas, hardware stores, marine chandlers etc. Everything is new, people as well as the culture. This is a complicated process but, at the end of the day, very rewarding: you really get to know places and cultures in a completely different way than tourists do.

We are definately no tourists in the usually accepted sense, trying to get our floating home maintained and improved and dealing with local small businesses. Just as an example, if you are in a yard at, say Costa del Sol, don’t buy your paint in the marina store, go to the hard ware store on the third street from the waterfront (where the local fishermen go).

There is usually also a lot of dealings with officialdom; customs, immigration, health inspections, agriculture, harbour masters etc. And usually you have to find these offices in different parts of the cities. Clearing in or out of a country may take a few days sometimes. Sometimes it is an additional challenge trying to explain why you want to leave your boat and fly home for a while (“you are not selling it here in our country are you, in that case you would have to pay tax for importing it, just to make sure we will want a bond while you are away”). And remember, the language barrier is often pretty high, they are not spelling it out as clearly as I’m doing here, and there are usually no written guide lines (as you would have arriving on a commercial jet).

But the bottom line is, that along the way we have met many wonderful people and even if we are getting poorer every time we haul out, we are so much richer with experiences – every time.

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Severe body piercing in Phuket

Saturday, October 16th, 2010

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Click on photos for large versions

We got caught right in the middle of it all. No, it’s not the riots in Bangkok starting again. This is a scene today in the centre of Phuket during the annual Vegetarian festival.

The festival is a 150 year old tradition of refraining from eating meat, drinking alcoholic drinks, engaging in sex, quarreling, telling lies or killing. The procession walks trough the city and several persons pierce their tongues, cheeks, and other parts of the anatomy with sharp implements. Apparently they feel no pain, and show little sign of real injury, although we saw a lot of blood on their clothes.

Unfortunately I had a problem with my camera, so the photo of the man with both a sword and a garden scissor through his cheek is not sharp.

If you are not one of the faint-hearted, take a look at photos from last year’s festival in Session Magazine.

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Raising the water line

Friday, October 15th, 2010

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We haven’t posted any reports in the Log&Yarns -section for many months. This is because, since April, Scorpio has been up on the hard, where she is subject to, again, extensive maintenance and face-lifts. I will give a full report regarding all the work at a later stage, when all is finished.

This Blog-section is primarily intended for stuff unrelated to cruising, but it is convenient for short, ad hoc, writing about anything. So I thought I’d give you some ideas of what’s going on right now, here in Boat Lagoon, Phuket.


Click image for larger version

In the distorted photo above, I am trying to illustrate how the water line is being raised. This is the second time the line has been raised since the yacht left the Nautor yard in 1979. We have been carrying so much junk aboard, causing the yacht to float deeper than designed, that we decided a raise was necessary. In the picture, the new boot stripe (I think that is what the broad dark blue line is called) has already been painted. The thin blue line is masking tape showing the level of new anti fouling paint. The sanded greenish area is the old anti fouling area. The new water line will be about two inches higher that before.

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