Bangkok by Night

Flying between the UK and Western Australia is a very tedious business. Best you can do is two flights, one 12-14 hours, the other maybe 8-9 hours (although I think it's Virgin, or, maybe BA who now offers a direct flight from Perth to London, for a big price of course). Elapsed time is 20-24 hours, or more, with a short layover in either Abu Dhabi, or, Doha. Both these hot, desert locations don't really appeal to us as a desirable stopover location, so, we try to just get through as fast as possible. This time though, we went for something different. We flew through Bangkok, Thailand with a nine hour layover between flights. We were hopeful that nine hours would be enough to take us out of the airport and maybe on a mini sightseeing tour. We weren't sure if it would be possible and what to expect, but, it all went really well and we had a short, but, densely-packed tour that was a really great first introduction to Bangkok.

We knew we were limited in what we could see because we didn't arrive until 3 p.m., after most of the major tourist attractions had closed and we only had until midnight. We pre-booked and paid for a Bangkok Night Lights Tuk Tuk Tour, with Expique. Are we glad we did, it was excellent! Of course, if we'd done all the work by ourselves, the price would probably have been a lot lower, but, for once, we paid the money along with some extra as well for a private tour as the regular group tour started too late for us. With our limited time and lack of Thai experience it was worth every penny. We've never been on such an easy tour, every detail was taken care of and we packed a lot into just four hours. All food, entrance fees and transport was included.

First, we got on the rail link train from the airport, inexpensive, clean and efficient and were met by our personal guide, Tom, who then shepherded us onto the skytrain to meet up with our Tuk Tuk and driver, Mr. Somtab.

From there we headed out and into the streets. In hindsight, it really was a good choice to travel after dark in Bangkok. It's cooler, there is less traffic, fewer people and the temples and monuments are absolutely beautifully lit after dark showing them to their best advantage. The photos don't really do it justice, but, I did my best. Here are some of the temples we visited.

At one of the smaller temples, there was an evening cremation service underway. The floral arrangements surrounding the cremation house were absolutely incredible.

All this temple touring was making us hungry. Our guide, Tom, had been feeding us delicious snacks along the way, purchased from street market vendors he made sure to tell us are hand chosen by the company to offer safe and clean food, like the delicious sausages from this stall.

Now we were heading for our main evening meal. It was to be Pad Thai. I'm sure maybe some of you are thinking, well, couldn't you have been a bit more inventive, after all there's a lot more to Thai Food, but, this tour was billed as a 'cultural tour with food', not a foodie tour, they had another tour just for those who wanted adventurous eating, but, that wasn't us. Anyway,  this was different Pad Thai to anything we've had before. It was encased in an egg wrap (a skill which takes months to learn how to do) and it was delicious. It was accompanied by fat, sweet prawns as a garnish and the best fresh squeezed orange juice I think I've ever had.

The restaurant is called Thipsamai. You can read a BBC story on it here It doesn't take reservations and the queue when we arrived was very lengthy and snaked way down the sidewalk. Tom, our guide, had hired somebody to stand in line for us and he timed our arrival with military precision so that we only had a very short wait for a table! We had just enough time to watch the noodles being cooked in the sidewalk kitchen over open charcoal fires.

After this we were whisked off to the twenty four hour flower market, a feast for the visual senses. 

Our last stop was in Chinatown, at the mango and sticky rice dessert food stall! A delicious end to a delightful evening.

We got back to the airport in plenty of time for our flight and didn't have any trouble falling asleep on the last leg to London.

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The Two Rocks story, so far.

All the time we sat on the hard in Carnarvon, waiting to get put into the water so we could move the five hundred miles further south to Perth, the weather was just about perfect. Warm and sunny, not too hot and the nights just cool enough, but, not too cold. We had a couple of rainy days that were welcome. We watched many a perfect weather window for departure go by. As described in my last post, we did find a good window for the passage and were glad to be on our way again. After arrival at Two Rocks, near Perth, we didn't realize how lucky we had been as it was the very last good window available for the next month. Two days after our arrival here, the winter storms started and have not abated. There are usually two days of dry, but, cool weather and then a storm rolls in. They're not quick 24-36 hour gales, but, prolonged events. The last one was a full five days in duration. It consisted of constant gale force winds that just didn't stop, with gusts over fifty knots here in the marina. The wind shakes the boat and is very noisy as it's constantly whistling through the rigging, creating a sense of unease even though we're perfectly safe sitting low to the ground on our twin keels and don't have to worry about dock lines chafing, or, anchors dragging. The rain is intermittent, but, very heavy and comes in horizontal lashings that sweep over Gjoa like a pressure washer. The nights are cold, down to 2C. We had to go and buy a heater! It's not exactly what we expected, but, when you look at where we are on the globe, in this very exposed most southwesterly point of Australia, just above the Southern Ocean with no land masses to slow down the low pressure systems that continually travel unimpeded around the globe, I suppose weather like this is the norm here. The low pressure systems do move further south in the summer months, so, hopefully it does get better.

Even though it has been very stormy, the last few weeks here have not been unproductive. One major job completed was to replace our standing rigging. It's an insurance requirement that rigging is replaced every ten years. So, we didn't have coverage for rigging failure and were anxious to get it done. We were so lucky to find an expert rigger, Edgar from Yacht Rigging Solutions who was very professional and got the job done quickly and reasonably. Here he is on one of his many trips up the mast. I should point out he's probably the same age as we are, but, obviously in great shape as he put in a full day and made it look like it was nothing.

It was quite shocking when the very first shackle he inspected looked like this. This rather ominous-looking crack was hidden, but, an obvious accident just waiting to happen at the bottom end of a backstay. There were also a few broken strands of wire, so, definitely it was time to replace the rig.

We also decided to change from a twin headsail setup to a cutter rig. We'd grown to appreciate the flexibility and ease of handling a cutter's sail plan on our first cruising boat, a Baba 35. The twin headsail setup is an excellent rig for tradewind sailing, but, our kind of sailing never seems to take us into the tradewinds. Dealing with two enormous genoas, both with poles, one of which we never used didn't seem to make much sense. It was actually an easy hardware change which only required moving the head of the inner forestay down to a tang that was already on the mast for a removable storm jib and adjusting the length of the roller-furled, inner forestay. The two stays now aren't quite parallel, which they probably should be, but, our sailmaker has assured us it should still work ok. We're meeting with him tomorrow to discuss recutting our old inner genoa into a staysail and creating a new jib top (Yankee) sail for the outer forestay. Depending on cost, a new mainsail may also be in order as we want to put in a third reef which the existing main is too weak to support.

Standing rigging replacement and sailmaking are jobs best left to the experts, but, we weren't idle while all this was going on. We completed a large job which we hope never to have to repeat. We dismantled all the ceilings on the boat to repaint them as they were looking very dingy and depressing. It was a massive job. This picture shows only the first half of all the bits and pieces that had to be unscrewed and carried down the ladder to the asphalt so we could paint. First day was carry it all down, sand and prime. Then, carry it all back up into the boat for the cold overnight. Then, next day it all went down again for two finish coats. We had to pick our days to dodge the storms and finally were able to complete the job today. It does look great. New led lighting will also help to brighten things up.

The acrylic Lewmar hatches in the boat are all badly crazed. It's very expensive to replace them, so, as a test we brought a piece of replacement acrylic to fit, with the hope that if it worked out, it would be a much cheaper, but, time-consuming method of replacement. It went in easily and well, but, the hatch we chose to do turned out to have a broken weld, so, will require a complete lid replacement. The other four will just require the new acrylic inserts, another future job for the to-do list.

As I've posted recently, we did extensive work on our hydraulic steering. It's been a steep learning curve. The autopilot did work flawlessly on the way down from Perth, thankfully, but, it was clear that the motor on the continuous running hydraulic pump was on its last legs. A new one is about 3,500 USD, so, we were very eager to try and fix the unit we have. We were told by a hydraulic shop that the motor was not rebuildable, so, after a solid week of research, we were able to track down the manufacturer of the pump in the UK who luckily does sell replacement motor kits. There was a snag though. With the new version of the motor, a new variable speed check manifold would also be required. Even replacing both these pieces is still vastly cheaper than a new, complete pump. It arrived yesterday after having to pay an additional 350 AUD customs duty. We won't have time to fully install and test it before leaving for the UK next week, but, at least it's here awaiting our return. We then picked up our 'dead' motor from the hydraulic place and took it to one of those motor rebuild places that haunt the fringes of industrial areas in every town. They were able to rebuild it for just $55. Guess it will make a good spare...

One last saga to report. The previous owner of this boat spent 10,000 NZD on all-new Raymarine electronics in 2015, radar, two chartplotters, ais etc... We were glad to have this all done and installed and just two years old. We thought we'd have a few good years of service out of it. The models chosen weren't what we would have picked, especially the touchscreen-only versions of the plotters. I think I wrote about this before, but, wet and cold fingers in the areas we usually sail don't work very well on a touchscreen. The plotter at the outside helm, well-protected under a hard dodger, started failing in a predictable, but, weird way. Every night, just after the sun went down, the screen would freeze and the touchscreen would no longer work. Next morning, when the sun came out, it would start working again. Obviously, some kind of moisture ingress problem. Anyway, we finally had an opportunity to get it into a service centre here, only to be told that it would cost $2,000 to repair it! The seal had somehow been compromised. There had been a two year warranty on all the equipment and if the previous owner had enrolled for the free extended additional one year it looked like it may be covered under warranty. I hopefully sent in the bill of sale showing the 2015 purchase date only to be told that the warranty doesn't start when the purchaser buys the equipment, but, when the dealer buys it to sit on his shelf! What kind of misleading warranty is that? After pleading poverty, the bill came down to $1,200, still exorbitant.

I'm sure that those of you reading this that are not boat owners think that this is all a little over-the-top, but, actually, talk to any boat owner and you'll find these sorts of things are all in the normal course of events. To get those few perfect days at sea, or, at anchor, requires a lot of background effort and expense. Anyway, we have a few exciting things planned over the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned and I promise I won't talk again about boat repair for a while! It'll be good to take a break.

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