We arrived in Phuket, Thailand safely – after an unexpected layover in Singapore. We had booked the 8 o’clock morning flight from Singapore to Phuket, which would be a 4 hour layover. But when we tried to check-in, they told us that we were booked in for the flight at 6pm!! Even after showing them the proof of our bookings they told us that we couldn’t get onto that flight unless we pay another $200! The reason for that was that we had book via an agency and not directly with Tiger-Air. That’s why Tiger remained firm in blaming the third party, Bravofly in our case, and wouldn’t leave us an option… To make some use of the day we now had in Singapore, we took the train into town to explore a bit. For the little bit of time that I was there, I found it a very interesting city with a lot of art and buildings of strange shapes. When getting out of the subways, we looked up into the sky, as if watching a UFO land on earth. There it was, a sailors dream – a ship in the sky! …on level 57 to be exact. High above ground they put a boat on top of three buildings. We couldn’t help having a closer look and went for level 57 – where we found a roof-top swimming pool that looked liked it was running of the building. It was a very spectacular view. We got sent down quite soon though, as it was just meant for paying hotel quests and not for poor looking and barefoot-backpacking Gypsy’s :). Nevertheless we ended up having a great 15 hours in Singapore before we arrived in Phuket at night, to meet Dan’s friend working on his boat in a marina not far from the airport. Knowing that, we started walking towards it. A few rides on the back of pick-ups helped us getting there quicker and finding Queen Tala in the dark. It’s an old 52ft ferro-cement ketch with heaps of work to do before I would even consider it seaworthy… We have been working almost non-stop on getting the boat ready for a trial sail. We replaced the bowsprit and cleaned the whole bottom of the boat which pretty much meant removing 10cm of reef over the entire length. One day we went out sailing to an island on a Jeanneau with a family that we got to know here and lives on their boat. When we anchored in front of a beautiful island, Dan and I took our hammocks and slung ’em up in a tree that managed to grow with it’s feet under water. We spent the next morning exploring the wild heart of the island a bit and had a good time on board later on, before we sailed back. The owners even gained some trust in our handling of the boat, so that they offered us to have the boat for a couple of days as they were heading off. And I will NEVER say no to cruising around Thailand while being the skipper myself. Really looking forward to being on the water again and exploring by boat. I’m completely in my element again living in a marina and working on boats in the humid heat of a new place to explore.

Laura

Singapore

Queen Tala