Ten Days to go!!!!!!!!

Tim's sister Jeanette was our last visitor. Time is flying like greased lightening. It is scary fast.

We just had 2 weeks with Netty/Jeanette/Skip. It was a super visit to end this incredible chapter.

We had a slow start. Netty had been racing Masters Cross Country Skiing in Labrador, -30' , (5 bronze medals!) and stepped off the plane here in 30' and humidity. It was very hot while she was here.

We had a bbq so she could meet some of our friends. We can rent a bbq down by the pool. We pay $5 to reserve it, but  $50 deposit to insure we leave it tidy. When you are finished you call the security guard to come and inspect your tidying job, sign you off and you go to the office the next day to get your deposit back. Just like school children. Urgh.

We went to a concert of the SSO doing Bach's St. John Passion,  We did some sight seeing, Marina Bay Sands, I think the most amazing "must" in Singapore. An engineering feat, and so beautiful. The Art science Museum, again , an architectural jewel, built to look like a lotus flower, and saw a dinosaur exhibition that was wonderful. 

 Then we went to Norm's boat. Norm, our dear friend who was the reason we came here. He had come a year ahead, and called Tim to say this is fantastic, you should come. He is now retired, and his plan is to be 5 months on his sailboat out of Phuket, a month travelling, then 5 months in Barbados, (his home, his roots, where he has a house,) for 5 months, and travel a month. Sounds pretty nice to me. He is the most wonderful, generous, happy, interesting, brilliant soul. I do love him dearly. He had invited us for 4 days, it coincided with Netty being here, and Tim got the 4 days off.

Norm is very tall, and makes me feel petite!

We had very still water. Which made sailing easy or even not enough and we had to motor. We were crossing from Phuket to Krabi. Tim and I had been to both places staying at resorts. I would look out at these beautiful sail boats and think "wow". Well we were the "wow". To see these beaches from the boat. Fantastic! We crossed the Andaman Sea from the east coast of the peninsula Phuket is on, to the west coast further south than the peninsula, to Krabi. The water there is scattered with these amazing islands. Limestone eruptions in the sea. Many have caves and chimneys carved out by millennia of sea water. They are spectacular. Photos do not do them justice. (see how quiet the water is)

We anchored three nights, and we had 2 kayaks for exploring, a little rubber dinghy to go ashore, and we could have gone diving. Norm has tanks, a regulator, the works.

 His boat is 50' long, has three cabins and a bow cabin, so can sleep 8. We were 5; Norm, Tim, me, Netty, and a young man, Ben, a son of a friend of Norm's, who helped crew. The boat is lovely. Called Barbados Bound, because that is where Norm lives, or has a house. (He commuted from Barbados to TO for Air Canada!)

We are just coming out of a hong cave. It is beyond description. We are in the dinghy looking at the BB anchored in the very still sea. Shallow water, vegetation growing on the walls - the will to live is dramatic- Sometimes the opening goes in to a cave, sometimes in to a chimney, that is either enclosed at the top, or open to the sky.

I felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, and yet the longtails come by with tourists to visit the caves. I think I have shown these longtails before, beautifully designed, sea worthy teak boats, with a motor (a very simple engine that sounds like piston beaver- that is very loud) that will draw very little water, so they can go in very shallow water. They ply the heavy seas beautifully too. But they are noisy.
We also were visited by fishermen, and we bought fresh prawns and bbq'd them.

Here is beautiful Barbados Bound anchored at a hong.

We swam in to this beach and wandered in on the island, through a slice in the wall, and followed a river. The high walls echoed the calls of birds, and I felt like Robinson Caruso.

We came back to Sg and went to Garden by the Bay. These fantastic structures, maybe 100' high, are growing living walls up them. They are very dramatic.

A lovely view of my favourite Singapore icon, Marina Bay Sands, from the Garden.

I am going to be very busy and somewhat scattered over the next 10 days. TEN DAYS!!! YIKES!!!getting this place closed up. We will finish here 25th and head back shortly thereafter. I have decided to continue this blog after getting back to Canada, because there will be a post script for me. The transition will be a big one. So I will record it.

Thank you for sharing my adventure. So far! It has been very important to me to feel I am connecting with friends back home. I so want to share the adventure, because I am so lucky to have done this. It has been fantastic. But to be sharing helped with the inevitable loneliness of being away. From very low depths, extreme ill health, to wallowing in the adventures we have had, it has been quite a ride. Thank you for sharing it.