President Elect J'Biden

 

OK, we knocked off another presidential race prediction. Running two for two for the last couple of elections. It's nice to see how graceful and cooperative the looser has been.  It is even nicer that he is no longer dominating the airwaves. Its a slow reduction of chaos.

I've noticed that a number of the conservative media hosts have had trouble pronoucing the first name of Vice President elect Harris. - Kamala. At the same time seems like all tbe talking heads are getting the pronunciation of President elect Biden correct - J'Biden.

I was planning on going into a deep analyses of how the country ended up voting roughing 80 million to 74 million, and how close 3/4 of the country didn't  vote with the left progressive side of the Democratic party. But if I did that then this wouldn't be a cruising blog and I'd risk loosing my reader. It's pretty easy to loose your single reader if you come down on both sides of an issue.

Back to actual cruising plans, we fly to Kuala Lumpur on 11/30. We'll spend 14 days locked up in hotel. Should be out of quarantine and back to Langkawi around Dec 16, if all goes well.  Our current plan is to launch Georgia and repair all the things that broke cause they didn't get used for the last 6 months. Then we'll  head across the Indian Ocean in late Jan. Hopefully with a stopover in Chagos and then on to the Seychelles. Might add the Maldives to the list. At least that is 2021 Plan A. Given that we had to go to the Greek letters for Plan id's in 2020 in a similar pattern as the Atlantic hurricane season naming did, I'm not holding out for much in Plan A to actually make it to execution.

We had a fleeting thought about changing plans when we heard all of tbe good news on vaccines. Maybe we should stay put and wait for a Covid vaccine. On second thought ---------- that would put us sitting out what looks to be the worst of the infections peaking over the next few months. We might as well spend that time in a place with a far lower infection rate.

Next up, a blog from our quarantine hotel.

A reminder for the holidays

A Zoom Thanksgiving

Is better than an ICU Christmas

Bye Oldman

 

Sherman, Paul, Chris, Judy and unnamed Komodo dragon

Sherman - Fairwinds I

You sailed over the horizon

And now you've crossed the bar

RIP friend

Octember Weather

 

Summer is good and over here in the Pacific Northwest. Local berries are no longer in the grocery stores. It's cold with spells of rain. Typical for when October blends into November: Octember. Now that our mail-in ballots are here we can plan to return to the boat in Malaysia. That is after we resolve the debate on who to vote for. Many of our international cruising friends look at us and want to know how could the US elect a president like the one we have. That is the international cruising crowd with the possible exception of male Australians, who seem to often have a penchant for the orange-haired leader.
The best explanation I've seen for the Trump phenomenon is that 80% of the country knows he is an asshole. 40%, or half, love him because of it and the other half hate him for it. In 2016 I predicted Trump would win. In 2020 I predict he is going to get his ass handed to him. We'll see.
The other day we were shopping in the local Costco. We both slipped into daydreams about how easy it would be to provision the boat if we could do it here. The shelves are stocked high here. About the only thing in short supply is ammunition at the gun shops. Want to get ammo for your newly acquired Glock? Limit 5 boxes per customer. Even Costco is now carrying the old military style ammo boxes. If you have been collecting guns over the years here, then now’s a nice time to list them online so you can get 4 or 5x return on your investment. It’s reported that 40% of gun purchases are first time buyers this year. Pretty crazy situation. 

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It has been a journey trying to figure out how we can be reunited with Georgia.  The Malaysian borders are closed to tourists and the US is on the high risk list of countries. Malaysia is seeing a new wave of Covid cases like much of the rest of the world. Compared to Washington state they are at about 1/5  to 1/10 the infection rate per capita (depending on when and what you compare). And Washington is one of the better states in the US for Covid-19 control.
The first plan to reunite with Georgia was to have her delivered to Singapore and then do a "crew transfer" where we would fly into Singapore and the delivery crew would fly back to Malaysia. Singapore is one of the worlds largest shipping ports. They have a very detailed procedure for crew transfers on and off these ships. We had hoped to sneak into this procedure. In the end it seemed like it might be possible, but expensive. We would be paying a delivery crew for close to a month as they had to deal with multiple country quarantines.
Then we got wind of a couple of UK cruisers who got permission to reunite with their boat.  We headed up to the Malaysian immigration site and applied online for special permission to reunite with Georgia. We explained that she is our only home, that we will be spending significant money readying her to cross the Indian Ocean with the local establishments, etc. They quickly responded with a single entry permission beginning Dec. 1. We are allowed to fly to Kuala Lumpur. We will be met at the airport and transferred to a local hotel for a 14 day quarantine stay. Then a Covid test and we are free to continue on to Langkawi.  At least that's the current plan.

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To keep myself busy and stave off additional mental decline, I needed a project. I found this 1955 Shopsmith woodworking tool in a barn near here. The owner wanted it to go to a good home and offered it for $100. What a steal. They still make these machines and the new parts fit the old system.

Pulled the thing entirely apart, found the original paint color and got her looking pretty, This thing is a drill press, table saw, lathe, jointer, planer and boring machine, all in one.

Till we make it to quarantine.

Paul