Fun and Games

Mussel Man

Nephew Brendan's Awesome Visit

Neil's nephew, Brendan Pollard, came to Singapore for 10 days in early January.  We shopped, partied, cooked, listened to good music and were completely zoo'd out during this time.  We were also able to listen to Brendan practicing on his saxophone most days  -  a private sax player in the anchorage.

Widening Brendan's horizons was fun - he can now make mean Margaritas and Mojitos, and he applied himself to other cooking skills.  He baked bread and then moved onto scrambled eggs.  In return Brendan cooked his fabulous French Toast.

Neil and Brendan spent a lot of "geek" time together, shopping and eating in Sim Lim Square- the Singapore temple of all things electronic.

But the most interesting thing we shared was our mutual love of mussels...just how many kilos did he eat?

Sailing In Singapore

Akhil Paul and Jason enjoying the sail.

Last Sunday eight of us set sail for a Sunday picnic at St John's Island.  Five were novice sailors from the Bangalore and Singapore offices of Space Matrix. With a good breeze and friend Rod Steel at the helm we enjoyed a few hours of sailing before anchoring for lunch.  Akhil Paul and Jason Aung (both complete boating novices) spent most of their time at the bow, reveling in the salty sailing. 
After a very cosmopolitan lunch including two traditional and delicious Burmese salads, most of us opted for a swim.  For once the water was cool and refreshing. With our visitors eventually free of inhibitions, Neil and Akhil were last seen jumping off the bow of Crystal Blues.

Strange but True

A few years back a large silvery white fish jumped out of the ocean and danced along our foredeck.  It skidded into the side of the open hatch over our bed, but didn't go through, leaving a trail of silver scales along the deck before flipping back into the sea.  On Sunday a similar fish leaped from the water at midships and whacked into Ley's calves.  We heard the whack and the splash but did not really "see" our fishy visitor, just the scales in the gunnel and Ley rubbing the bruise on her calf.

A work in progress!

Crimping Again

Our refit in Thailand wasn't quite complete when we departed there last year. So last week Neil started work on the new 12 volt control system for our refrigeration system.
For the first time in many months we had the tools out and the boat looking like an electronic workshop.  With the Eliwell controllers, plus many switches, diodes and Blue Seas terminal blocks, there has been a lot of soldering and crimping.  This is all being fitted to a custom stainless steel panel that was cut and engraved in Australia.  A work in progress to be completed....soon.