Celebrating Life, Boats & Women

13 Roses

Valentines Day and our wedding anniversary

Valentines Day and our thirteenth wedding anniversary was celebrated Singapore style this year.

Neil arrived at the boat with a beautiful bouquet of 13 roses and after dark we celebrated at a seafood restaurant that is famous for its live crab and fish.  We were joined by Steven Shaw, who was Best Man at our wedding, and his wife Carol, along with several other local and international crab lovers.

The beer was from Singapore and the live crabs were from Sri Lanka.  Those crabs, plus a large Grouper fish, were selected from huge glass tanks, scooped out and dispatched to the kitchen.  We patiently sat and waited for the feast to begin, and we were not disappointed.

Mumbai Boat Show

Just what we need - an on water couch!

Last Saturday we happened to be in Mumbai and so we just had to visit the 5th International Mumbai Boat Show.

Although India has a long maritime history, recreational boating is a fairly new concept there, so the show was low key.  It was focused mainly on new power boat owners, boats available for charter, a few stalls with marine bits and bobs and two marina design and construction companies.

There are many marinas planned for India, but until a few more are built India will be hard pressed to grow a pleasure boating industry.  We did chat with the builders of the Cochin Marina.  This new marina has proved extremely popular this year as a stop over for cruisers heading towards the Red Sea and the Maldives.  With at least three sailing rallies using Cochin as their Indian base, this marina is planned to double in size as soon as the paperwork and permits are granted. With the recent unfortunate turn of events in the Gulf of Aden, their planned extension may be lacking in visiting International sailors until the Somali pirate issues are contained.

Women Working In India

Our most recent trip to India included both Mumbai and Hyderabad.  With two major AV projects underway for Space Matrix, Neil's time was spent on building sites, co-ordinating services and AV installations.  Both of these projects are fascinating in their scope, budgets and expectations.  Being on-site is like being in the middle of preparations for an Indian wedding - or the Delhi Olympic Games - with its "it will be alright on the night" attitudes.  However the headaches along the way are of migraine proportions!

How do all the building supplies get delivered  - on women's heads, up the back stairs of course!    Such a contrast to the mega$$ high tech video wall that Neil is building.

Of course the biggest headaches are probably felt by the women on site, like those in this picture, who carry all the building supplies and construction materials up the stairs (all day long) on their heads.  The women in this image had never had their photo taken - ever! Seems appropriate to view the James Bond video here, in support of International Women's Day.