Back to Singapore!!!
09 January 2015 | Yacht Haven Marina
Sunny and blowing
I'm heading back to Singapore!!!! We are up in Phuket, Thailand but the failure of a very important piece of equipment is going to force me to go back to Singapore. At least I'll be flying instead of boating.
When we were in Puteri Harbour Marina, we went to Singapore and bought a gizmo called an Iridium GO!. It's a neat thing that will allow us to communicate with everyone when we are crossing the Indian Ocean. It's sort of like a "hot spot" for satellite communications. It works with cell phones making them a satellite phone. It patches through an IPad for sending emails and downloading text and SMSs. Well, it would if it worked. We made sure to charge up the battery for it while back in Puteri but we didn't plan on activating the service and the unit till late December before we took off in January for Sri Lanka. We pulled it out of the box and switched it on and hey, guess what---the battery was dead. OK, I plugged it in and it would work that way but if you were relying on using a battery(best way to use it) you were out of luck. I got help from Iridium on what to do to check the battery and in the end, they agreed--IT WAS DEAD!!! OK, lets get it swapped out. Oh, that's not easy. First, I was to be returned via Fed EX OR DHL(if they would even take it as it's a battery) to Singpore, then they would have to return it to the US. Then it gets inspected then a replacement unit gets sent back to Singapore and then it get forwarded to us. All that would have to be done in the next ten days or so as that was when we had planned on heading west. We all know that that wasn't going to happen so in the end, I'm climbing on a plane next Wednesday for Singapore returning the same day. Now Iridium has agreed to pay $100 Singapore dollars(about $75US) toward the cost of the flight. I just have to cover everything else. They have agreed to swap out the battery and even program our equipment for us so that's a BIG plus. It will be nice to have it done by someone that knows what they are doing(sure hope so).
Meanwhile, we've had the Tohatsu 18hp outboard serviced and gotten it back, had the new dinghy delivered and have done lots of runs in it since we are out at anchor(much cheaper). We've shopped for some things but have more to get(early next week) and out replacement anchor should be here sometime in the next few days.
We had friends come over from Krabi(Terry and Christine off Teka Nova) and they will be coming back to the marina on Saturday to see us again and see what their new slip is like for installing their new hard dodger(covers the cockpit). Heck, we even took some time yesterday and played tourist by visiting the Phuket International Boat Show(snooze!!!).
Today was clean and fix day again. The forward head decided to stop working again so I took it apart(again). Sure glad the "smell" portion of my nose has stopped working(surgery years ago). We filled up the gasoline tanks and two jerry cans of diesel that we will be transferring to the main tanks and get more next week when we rent a car again.
We just keep moving, getting things fixed and having fun.