Our Cruising Mantra - Retire Young - Retire Often

We first retired from our work in Australia in 2005, before going cruising.  For five years we stayed gainfully unemployed, before happenstance offered up a variety of interesting projects and challenges over the intervening years.

Since then we've been involved in making digital HD videos of beautiful villas in Bali and Thailand, project management at a zip-line ride and adventure park on Sentosa Island and consulting for a Singapore company, building an AV design team in Singapore and India.  These projects allowed us to experience the south Asia area in depth, and between the assignments we managed to continue our cruising life style.

Making Videos - Luxury Villas In Bali and Thailand

Project Management - MegaZip At Sentosa Island, Singapore

Building Systems - Axis Bank Mumbai, Video Walls & Multiple Meeting Rooms

Our latest contract has given us the opportunity to discover another country as we've been based in Manila for almost 12 months.  I've been working with a local company on a range of very large projects, including a museum, a luxury home and the largest temple in Asia.  Most recently I've been responsible for the design, implementation and commissioning of media systems for the new City Of Dreams Casino in Manila.

When the Fun Stops... Retire

Ley sends me off to work each morning with a consistent and clear message - have fun !  We both know that when the fun stops we will move on, returning to our cruising home.  

Retirement day now is now looming again.  On August 31 (in just one week), we'll be off again.  Yes, we are on a count down, there is water at the end of the tunnel and we are looking forward to sailing on it very soon.

Crystal Blues should depart Singapore in early October, calling in at Penang for a few weeks before hauling out of the water at Rebak in Langkawi (Malaysia) for some much needed under water anti-fouling paint. By January we'll be back to our old haunts around Phuket in Thailand.

Barnacle Busting

Barnacles and a solitary oyster living on the inlet fittings.

Almost two years since we last applied anti-fouling paint, and the barnacles are starting to grow on our hull once again.


Frustrated with barnacles blocking our raw water intake, in April this year we installed an Ultrasonic Antifoul System on Crystal Blues (read more here & here).  Though the Ultrasonic System is marketed to control barnacle growth on hulls, we were really wanting the system to keep our water intakes clear.  

Since the installation, the inlet hoses and filter basket have been growth free.  One victory for technology.  However the jury is not 100% convinced (yet) on the system's effectiveness on the hull.  Four months after the last clean, diving on the boat we find a fairly regular covering of small barnacles (the boat has been sitting in a marina in Singapore for the entire time).  Would it have been worse without the Ultrasonic system ?  Cautiously, we believe the answer is yes.

Systems Rich Neil

High Tech Cleaning

Removing the barnacles with a paint scraper is an arduous task, so this time we tried using the WaveBlade tool.  

We had looked at these tools with some suspicion over the past few boat shows.  Its like a hand held electric chisel, waterproof, and powered by 12 volts DC.  Faced with several acres of nasties, it seemed worth a try.

I can say this is a wondrous tool !  In use, the best description I can give is that its like shaving the hull.  With a light pressure and low angle, the blade glides across the surface of the hull and simply explodes everything in its path.  The small barnacles don't even slow it down, they just fall off, and the few large critters we found disappeared in seconds. The wave blade isn't specially fast, but it does make removing the critters an easier task.

Shaun & Harrison Helping Out With Scraper & Scrubber.

Low Tech Cleaning

Of course an even easier method is to send someone else in to do the dirty work.

Isn't that what grand kids are for ?  

You can never start hull cleaning too young, and  three year old Harrison was very keen to help Poppa Neil.  

Long may it last.