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| our new top to keep us cooler and drier |
We spent the two plus weeks doing some more odd jobs to the boat one of which was replacing two of the aft shrouds on the main mast. These are stainless steel wires that hold up the mast. One of them was showing a strand of the wire that was suspect. This is rather important as the loading on these is tremendous especially in big winds and gusts. We also replaced the jib sheet as well as having it gone over in the sail loft. We did enjoy our time at the marina with driving around Phuket and having dinners out with lots of old and new friends. The weather, last week, just before we left changed with a couple of days of high cloud and then lots of thunder storms rolled in and the winds went to the west. This is the start of the southwest monsoon and the temperatures have dropped which is just fine by us. Now my toes have stopped sweating!!
We drove too Ao Chalong and cleared out of Thailand on Friday and have about ten days before we have to check into Malaysia. This allows us to take our time going south and stop off and explore some of the islands. Our first stop was in Phi Phi Don which is infamous for the destruction that was caused by the 2004 tsunami. It is of course rebuilt and crowded with back packers and full of ticky tacky tee shirt shops and lots and lots of day tripper boats coming over from Phuket. Not a place we would want to spend much time at but worth a look. Next day we went to Ko Lanta and spent a couple of days. The first day we rented motor bikes along with Callisto and drove all around the island. It was a lot of fun and no one crashed. The next day was rather stormy with lots of squalls and rain coming through so we just stayed the days and did some reading and stuff.
The next morning we left for Ko Lipe with Callisto and are now just twenty miles from Langkawi where we will check in on Monday after spending the weekend here. It will be the last place where the water is clear and nice for swimming.
