We have spent more than two weeks working on Sea Topaz.
We have repainted the cockpit and the railings, Duncan has painted the area
underneath the gearbox and has serviced the engine amongst a host of other jobs.
We still have to paint the rest of the super structure, boot line and
patches on the hull and a whole load more. The weather is pretty hot and
sticky, but we are acclimatizing and are very grateful for our air conditioner.
We had several days of heavily polluted air from the fires in Sumatra and walked
around with facemasks. Fortunately that has all cleared now.
We decided to take a break and drive to Penang for a few
days. Kim and Richard very kindly invited us to stay; we are enjoying the
luxuries of life in a comfortable apartment, seeing the sights and
excellent food. Penang is a very interesting island steeped in history.
Yesterday we went up Gunung Jerai where we enjoyed the views, had a great lunch
and met an interesting guy who cultivated orchids. He showed us some beautiful
and unusual flowers.
We also did a bit of boat shopping, looking for
chemicals and ended up in a shop full of plastic bags and bottles with
anything you could possibly imagine.
We were persuaded to stay on to watch the rugby on tv
this evening. Back to work tomorrow.
