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Wednesday, May 8, 2013

April 26 – May 8, 2013 Return to Phuket and Surprise Decision to Ship Destiny







Back to Phuket and Yacht Haven to complete the unfinished work on Destiny by the canvas maker. Since deciding to stay another year in Thailand we had arranged a berth in Penang and were eager to get back there, hunker in for the rainy season and enjoy the wonderful food and sites of that city again. BUT we were hit with a big surprise hearing that more of our friends here were shipping their yachts to Turkey. Even Scallywag with whom we had planned to spend the summer months announced that the only yacht transit company left on this route, 7-Star, was adding a May shipment from Phuket departing around the 16th, and they had decided it was time to move on. We have missed out on so much having had Destiny stuck to the dock in Yacht Haven that we didn’t want to leave yet. They asked us to think about shipping Destiny, warning us that the deadline was within a few days. Many considerations weighed on us in making this decision and I felt a real tug to get us closer to home to my daughter, grandson and ailing parents. The cost was just around $50,000 cash, which meant that we would have to liquidate some investments to make this happen. Eventually we decided to go for it and on May 8th we signed the contract within a hare’s breath of the deadline. Frank blogged about it, detailing our many reasons for deciding to ship the boat.

We spent as much time as possible with Ute and Hans (Taimada), rented a car to provision the boat with all of our favorite Thai products. Paul and Glor wanted to hit the beach at Patong, hearing that it was a do not miss. Well, we did and found that there is every reason that it is called “A paradise for Hedonists”. Teeming with a pretty disgusting lot of  international visitors. Anything goes here – so use your imagination. Glor and I walked along behind the boys laughing & watching them try not to stare at the eye candy.

More to come…meanwhile some interesting photos, including Thai rubber trees, sunset over the beach at Phang Nga and some humor.



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