More in Singapore and a possible delay
20 March 2014 | Pacific Maritime Expo
dark outside
When I last left off, we were at the boat show in Singapore. Well Tracy was at the boat show in Singapore. I was sitting on the floor outside the expo. To make a long story short, Tracy found Hella Marines booth and picked up our part. We now have a fully operating fan for our boat. Can't have too many fans in a boat when it's in the 90's and the humidity is the same. As I waited, I was asked by a security guard to get up and move along as people weren't allowed to sit on the floor. Of course, no chairs were provided so I didn't feel I had a lot of choices. Any way, as Tracy had just returned with the part, we both moved along--we left the show and headed for Little India. Time to play tourist again.
It took a couple of trains to get there but we arrived in time for a late lunch. We walked through the "town" looking at all the shops, mostly jewelry dealers trying to sell a bunch of gold jewelry. Enough bracelets to choke a horse. We finally saw a nice restaurant with a menu out front and I found what I wanted--Chicken Curry!!(I'm sure you are surprised). Tracy opted for Butter Chicken(another curry dish) and we settled in for a nice lunch. When they brought the meal, mine was a quarter chicken in a bowl of curry sauce. Now we are not talking parts of a quarter chicken, but a big chunk of chicken, bones and all in the sauce. Sure glad I keep my boating knife on me at all times. Tracy's was a nice bowl of pieces of chicken, some with the bones still in the meat(she hates that). Both dishes were quite tasty though it's always a challenge to get the meat off the bones without swallowing some(the bones that is).
As it was raining off and on all day, we cut our time there short and headed back to Gurong East via the train to catch the bus back to Geleng Patah. It was one of the fastest trips we have had over the border. We left Gurong East in Singapore and got to Geleng Patah in Malaysia in just 45 minutes. Problem was that we got to Geleng Patah at 1715, 15 minutes after the bus that would have taken us to Puteri Harbour Marina had left. The next bus wasn't till 1830 so we had a while to wait. I wasn't going to go after a taxi. We finally made it back about 1850 and had some soft drinks and snacks to eat.
Yesterday, we started out running. I was up at the laundry machines just after 0730 to get an early start to the laundry. Tracy was meanwhile making us a breakfast of bacon and eggs. First bacon we have had since last December. You can get it here but it's quite expensive if you can find it. After breakfast and while I was putting another load in the washer, Tracy was prepping our dinghy to get the patch put back on again using the ketone/tuolene I'd purchased two days ago. It's been raining so much that this was the first time we have had it dry enough to get Puff dry enough to put the patch back on. We mixed up the glue and hardener and slapped on two coats on each piece and after waiting for the glue to set up put the pieces together. Lets hope it seals the hole this time. I finished the laundry while Tracy was washing out one of our cushion covers. One of the kids had an accident and the cover needed to be taken off, washed and laid out to dry(sure hope it doesn't rain again). We hung the cover inside the cockpit to keep it from getting wet. We got all this done just in time to take one of the marina's vans to one of the many shopping centers(about 20 kilometers away). The marina offers it's guests a trip once a week to this center to we can buy food for our boats and it doesn't require a taxi to get there and back. We'd opted for the 1100 trip(there is also a 1000 trip) and to come back at 1400. Plenty of time for lunch and scoping out the center and it's grocery store. We were back by 1430 and set about getting all the groceries put away. Poor Zephyr is bulging at the seams.
Looks like we may be delayed again. Our Freedom 20 charger/inverter is beginning to make lots of noise. It sounds like the internal fan that keeps the unit cool during charging is going out. I'll be taking the cover off it today and taking a look. I just got off Skype with the company that makes the unit and parts are still available. I'll see what's going on inside, maybe just some lubricant is needed. If it's a new fan, we might be able to get one in Singapore or at the worst, stay here a while longer while one is shipped in from the US via UPS. The tech that helped me(actually the owner of the company answered the phone) told me to take a look and if it's still cooling the unit to just keep using it till the new fan comes and can get installed. I figure I can put another fan close by to keep the charger/inverter cool till it comes. We will see what I find today. The company has the part in stock and can get it out as soon as I call him back. Wish us luck. We are trying to get out of here but I don't want to loose this inverter/charger. It's quite expensive to replace.