Great race - great result!

You might think that the above relates to Jenson Button winning in Monaco. Whilst this was very exciting, the title actually refers to us winning a yacht race on El Coyote - yippeeee!
We are sure El Coyote has won previously, but this is the first time that we have won on it. Yippeeee!
What a fabulous sporting weekend it was. After our victory on the water, we rushed down to Nubaa (aka The Standard) to watch Jenson and he didn't let us down. This was followed by the great news that Hull City have stayed up (shame for Newcastle), and that Rangers won the SPL.

We haven't got a photo of yesterday's race as we were shorthanded and too busy. The above is from the Pattaya Mail, (more column inches) following our podium finish at Top of the Gulf Regatta. We are sure you will recognise Alison and Thane who were obviously discussing racing tactics whilst enjoying a cider.

Tomorrow we set off for the Ko Samui Regatta. A gentle four day cruise down there followed by six days hard racing.

Bye for now Alison and Garry

Weeing off the balcony

Weeing off the balcony, we will explain this later.
All the pictures below are of the past, but we have just been thinking about how good the future looks. Tonight, we are going to a party, tomorrow sailing, Sunday racing, Monday a four/five day yacht delivery to Ko Samui, then six days racing in the Ko Samui Regatta. Life is good!

It is so hot where we have been working, you have to eat your ice cream really quickly. Alison is wearing most of this one.

Garry is repairing the trampoline on Scott's trimaran. The tide was out and somewhere under the pontoon was a monitor lizard. Garry is not keen on these, especially when they are six foot long and hungry.

Having a beer after a days work on Scott's boat. From left, Scott, Garry and Tony.

The Spanish Grand Prix when our man Button won. We watched the race in Nubar with Paul and Jojo, the bar owners.

Jojo and a friendly lady boy. Guess?

This a great bunch of Malaysian people, who chartered El Coyote for a day's cruise. We were crew. We took them to Monkey Island (there's a clue in the name). We went ashore carrying bottles of water. One cheeky monkey climbed up Garry's shorts and t shirt, grabbed his bottle of water and ran off with it.

Does my bum look big in this (pick up)?

Al is picking up lots of new (and exciting) skills. Here she is overhauling a winch.

Some parts of El Coyote are difficult to access. We normally keep the beer in this locker. Garry had been asked to take a look at the bilge pump down this hole.

Will he make it out of there?

How to wear a boat round your waist.

Washing day in our apartment. As you can see we have rather limited facilities but a mosquito net hanging kit is a good substitute for a washing line.

We did eventually manage to get out for a sail on Scott's boat. It was a close call as we literally touched the sea bed five or six times getting out of the river. Worth the effort as we had a great day's sailing.

We haven't been to Baghdad yet, but we know which way it is. This was in Singapore where we had a painful (expensive) time. We had to go in order to pick up a new visa to spend another 30 days in Thailand.

Whilst we were in Singapore, there was a dumpling ceremony. This is the patron saint of dumplings. We think he had a taste for them.

This is a local delicacy, but we didn't try it. We stayed in Little India and the food was excellent (our favourite). Little India, in some ways is better than India. It has all the best bits, without any of the horrible bits.

This was the only Chinese house in Little India. Singapore has some great architecture, with a mixture of old and new.

This is Clarke's Quay the original trading area on the Singapore River. It is now bars and restaurant and in the evenings, there is a great atmosphere, although the prices are a bit steep! $20 for a beer!

This is a sculpture on the side of the river.

Back to the architecture, this is a theatre complex that looks like a durian ( a very smelly, prickly fruit).

Back in Thailand, at Ocean Marina, this strange craft appeared. Looks like fun though.
We have been preparing El Coyote for the delivery and the race at Ko Samui. Here Gary Baguley (skipper) and his team are helping with some last minute, go faster mods. Guess who is up the mast?

Yes, you guessed right. It's Alison hanging around.

Weeing off the balcony - where did this come from?

We were sitting on our ninteenth floor balcony, overlooking the Gulf of Thailand, having a couple of drinks, talking about how good life is and that it was time to write another blog. Alison wanted a title that would make people read it. She left this task to Garry, whilst she jumped the queue for the loo. By the time she got back, Garry was desperate and had come up with the title. Fortunately, for those below he had not performed this act.

Bye for now

Alison and Garry

Most of the last blog was about our success in the "Top of The Gulf" regatta. Below are a couple of pictures of El Coyote (the boat we sailed on). We've just received them and thought you may like to see them as a little update to the blog.This is us flying the big spinnaker which we managed to rip early on in the regatta but got it fixed before we needed it again.

And this is us with the little spinnaker that we ripped but managed to repair in between races.

That's all for now.

Cheers.

Garry and Alison.

On the Podium

We have just finished a 4 days sailing regatta at Ocean Marina. Brilliant regatta, but best of all is that we finished third in the class on El Coyote and therefore, got on the podium and collected a trophy. Prior to the actual regatta, we were "lucky" enough to spend a few days modifying and preparing the boat. Mostly, this involved lots of swearing and sweating. The picture above is Adrian Baguley (Gary's son) who very kindly came along, like superman and helped finish off the race preparation. He is up the mast, taping over the ends of the spreaders so they don't rip the sail.

This is a fellow competitor in our class - Breakaway. It has mostly french crew, more of them later and a slogan down the side of the boat saying, Why Do I Do It? More of that later too. The first days sailing was fairly straight forward with light winds, so at this point most boats were still in good shape. We only had one small problem in that we ripped the light weight spinnaker. This went off to be repaired.

Fortunately, day two was much windier, so we were Ok with our heavy weight spinnaker. The stronger winds took their toll on the fleet. Above is Breakaway and if you look closely, there is a big hole in their mainsail. Lots of boats sustained damage with one losing its mast. Another boat in our class, damaged the rig on a smaller sports boat, Pornstar in a collision. Our damage that day was limited to putting a big hole in our heavy weight spinnaker, but this was patched by us during the race and held out.

Day three and the winds were lighter, but this boat still lost its mast. We did a long passage race and finished third. The only problem we had that day was the intense heat.

The crew on El Coyote before the race started, checking everything is in position.

After the race, the crew on El Coyote. From the left, Siham, David, Garry, Tony, Scott, Thane and Chris. The skipper was away repairing other people's boats.

This is Pornstar, back on the water after repairing the rig that was damaged.

In the background is Intrigue. A 65 foot, 50 tonne boat that was racing in our class. We had some really close starts with them. On the final day, race one, they caught us out and we had to tack and lose ground. However, revenge was sweet. At the start of race two, Gary Baguley was able to force Intrigue to do a 360 degree turn before the start line, allowing us to get the text book perfect start.

These guys had plenty of beer on board, but no fuel. We towed them back to the marina, but couldn't get them into their berth.

So, this little inflatable towed them backwards around the marina and into their berth. The fee for this assistance was three cans of beer and a T -shirt. Pretty good value heh?

There was a party every night after racing, and on the final night this pretty young lady served us with Tetley bitter and cider. The boys didn't know what was best, the free beer or the pretty girls.

The last night's party. As the sun went down, spirits went up. We tried to get a picture of all of the crew. This is 10/11ths. Front row from the left - Garry and Sam. Back row from the left - Cliff (who was Mr Muscle doing the grinding), Alison and Chris, Siham, Tony , David, Scott and Gary Baguley.

As we said earlier, Breakaway has Why Do I Do It? on their boat and uniforms. On our uniform, we have Pourquoi Pas!! which is french for ???? and a good response to their question. When you know what it means, please leave as a comment. This is what is going on in the picture above.

This is Frankie from Breakaway who not only stole second place from us but also stole the limelight in this picture.

The T shirts were fab and everyone at the regatta knew which boat we were sailing on.

Proof of our third place and the reason Why We Do It. We also got a mention in the Bangkok Post (newspaper). Interesting description, "Thai-based, aussie, marine sector entrepreneur, Gary Baguley, was third in IRC class 1".
We have a few weeks until our next race and look forward to spending the time making more go faster mods to El Coyote.

Cheers for now

Alison and Garry