Which yard?

That's what happens when I leave Russ to do the updates for the blog in English! It's been ages! Anyhow, to tell you the truth not much has been happening here... We were anchored in Telaga unitl this morning, when we decided to move to Cenang, a backpacker hang out in Langkawi. Reason to be here is basically to do what backpackers do: party! We are catching up with some friends tonight and going to the only club we know in the island. Should be fun.

Now, the reason we are STILL in Malaysia, is the eternal yard drama that every cruiser goes through once a year, or two for the lucky ones. Moonwalker hasn't been out of the water for over 18 months! We had booked a yard in Phuket - Thailand, which was the cheapest we had found and knew. However we have been told you are not allowed to spray there, only if you cover the entire boat (even if you are doing only the antifouling!) at a massive cost of over NZ$400! So we started researching again, and found two alternatives: one in Thailand in a place called Satun, and the other a new yard, right next to the main port in Langkawi, run by a French man called Jean Pierre. Satun is well known by the cruisers as a very cheap place with the cheap approach to everything else too, they use a trailer to haul out. Ok by all means but Russ would rather try the new yard here in Langkawi (they use cranes). However, the crane driver whom was to haul us out, hit a buffalo while driving home on his motorbike and managed to plant himself in the hospital! Now we are waiting to see if a new crane driver can be arranged this week, otherwise we will head to Satun in Thailand. By the way both haul outs were cheaper than in Phuket but still much more expensive than in Australia. Just an idea, in Australia we spent  around NZ$500 for the haul out (and in) including 3 days on the hard. Here it will cost us NZ$600 just for the haul in and out at the cheapest place - which is in Langkawi.

The propellers are here! They are beautiful and we are very hopeful they will deliver the extra knots we want. Russ and I are scraping and sanding all the wooden trim of the galley and re-varnishing it. It looks great! The wood is a bit lighter now.  And we sold our 15hp outboard too. That will pay for the haul out and etc. We were not using it really. And it less 30kg from the boat.

Well for "not much going on here" I managed to write quite a lot... Will keep you posted on our yard saga.