Thursday, October 29, 2009

We have Fresh Water!

After a week of frustratingly pulling hoses and fixing leaky connections we can very happily say that we have had our first glass of Blue Moon desalinated water! Yes we now have a fully functional water maker that will make life on board a lot more comfortable and Jimmy is walking around with a permanent grin on his face. It's a big weight off our mind as we carry a limited water supply and I no longer have to worry about Jimmy breaking his back collecting Jerry cans of fresh water at every port we get to...A good thing all round!!

We're still here in Langkawi doing our final stock up before checking out in the next couple of days to head north to Thailand. Caroline's mum and brother are flying into Phuket for a visit on the 9th of November so we have move pretty quickly to get ourselves into a good anchorage in time. The North East Monsoon seems to have finally set in bringing some great weather which hopefully means an end to the Rainy season!

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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Getting organised ~ Telaga Harbour

Blue Moon is back at Anchor in Telaga Harbour in Langkawi after being tied to the dock in Rebak Marina while we took our inland trip to Cambodia. We're now preparing the boat for the next big leg through the Red Sea on leaving Thailand in January. Jimmy's taking on the role of plumber while installing a brand new Water heater sent in from America and a second hand Water Maker brought from another cruiser here in Langkawi (The water maker is an HRO Mini Pack that should produce us around 7 Gallons of fresh water an hour with a pull of 20 Amps).

We still have to reprovision the boat with all the things we can't get in Thailand or things that are cheaper here, it costs 50 Ringgit ($15 US) to rent a car for 24 hours which you really need as everything is so spread out here. Instead of going to one supermarket to buy everything we have to go to different shops that specialise in different things like Cheese, Meat, vegetables, cleaning goods and so on. A shopping trip that might take an hour or two at home can take all day here, plus you have to remember where all the shops are, what they sell and at what prices!! Of course the same thing applies when trying to find boat parts which can take another whole day of running around.

The important thing to pick up here is the very cheap duty free alcohol which we'll have to stock up on enough to see us through to the Caribbean as we probably won't see prices like this again on the trip. It looks like we'll be filling every spare space with rum, Jameson and wine again...a lot like being back in Panama I think!

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