While Elaine has kept herself busy with our next video for the website, she was also the usual gofer for the day and completed a few smaller jobs, like replacing the refurbished inspection hole cover at the helmstation. She was, however, pleasantly surprised to find all the gates reopened along the promenade, allowing her to enjoy a lovely morning walk for the first time in weeks. The scenery was vastly different, though, and it was clear we’d definitely entered the “dry season”. The lawned area was brown, the flowers were nowhere to be found, certain shrubs looks weathered and some of the trees were looking a tad sad too. But, regardless, there was a refreshing cool breeze, very few people were out and the seascapes were as beautiful as ever. Having the otters come to say hello, just added to the delight.
Other news from Malaysia pertains to the reopening of the schools, given the disruption due to the pandemic. Unfortunately, children were only able to attend in-person classes for 5-6 months of 2020. Instead, pupils have been turning on a computer every morning for their online classes and, in some cases, sitting through five hours of lessons, with breaks every hour. Also 400,000 pupils were supposed to sit for their Malaysian Education Certificate (SPM) examination, an O-Level equivalent, between November and December last year, in addition to those who were supposed to sit their A-Level equivalent, the Malaysian Higher School Certificate (STPM) examination. Unfortunately all schools were closed again on 9th November as cases spiked with the third wave.
However, physical school sessions began again on 20th January, but only for those sitting the school-leaving examinations. This was to ensure the availability of enough space for appropriate social distancing and safety while pupils sit their examinations from 22nd February to 25th March, as more space than just an examination hall is now needed. Additionally, transit rooms have been prepared for those taking two papers on the same day.
Remaining pupils will return to school in phases, beginning with pre-schoolers and the first two grades of primary school on the 1st March, followed by the rest of the primary school pupils on the 8th March. This will allow teachers the time to get their youngsters familiarised with the SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) and handling dispersal at the end of the school day. All levels of the secondary schools will then return on 4th / 5th April, depending on the State.
While teachers have sought a variety of creative workarounds, such as conducting classes via Zoom and other video-conferencing applications, to help students keep up with their studies over the past year, home-based learning has proven to be a challenge, not only for parents who have been expected to shoulder the burden of supervising, assisting and teaching their children in a “home classroom”, but rural areas have also grappled with connectivity issues and families haven’t had enough electronic devices for their children. As a stop gap, a special television channel, dedicated to educational content, was launched in an effort to increase access to education for students.
It’s fair to say, these kinds of disruptions and issues have faced teachers, parents and pupils worldwide, never mind the psychological impacts all of this has had on these young minds, but, as the vaccine rollouts take place around the globe, there is indeed hope that life can return to some normalcy for students everywhere, albeit with stringent SOPs in place for the foreseeable future, acknowledging that some time will be required to bring everyone up to speed again.
After our movie tonight, though, we had a firsthand account of the impacts this pandemic has had on the schooling of our own grandsons; a video call as dad drove them to school. Besides enjoying a fabulous sing-a-long to various nursery rhymes and children’s songs, as well as hearing all about what they’re learning and who their friends are, it was the goodbyes that brought tears to Grandma’s eyes; seeing these little nippers don their masks, put their backpacks on their backs and jump out of the car to be escorted by school staff to their classrooms; it was akin to a “school drive-through”, where parents have to remain in their cars. The reverse is true at pickup time, except walkie-talkies are used to call each child from their classroom when the parent drives up. Initially every car had the child’s name and class posted on the windscreen, but, as time has marched on, the cars and parents are now familiar to the staff. For the pre-schoolers, Keenan was at least allowed to accompany the twins into the grounds, donning his own mask of course, but not for the kindergartener, William. The worst part is that for them, this new world was “normal“; they simply don’t know what school was like before this pandemic.
The last straw was William saying to Elaine: “but I can’t feel you, Grandma!” in response to Elaine blowing them all kisses and William putting his hand to the camera for Elaine to do the same. Just heartbreaking!
Fortunately in between these spells she has been fine and able to get on with various activities that needed doing; updating medical records, processing medical insurance claims, working on her special project, pursuing various options pertaining to a Thailand visa and enjoying chats to the family in Ireland. She also paid her respects through the “virtual funeral” of Olga’s loved one, recently lost to COVID-19 in South Africa. It was a beautiful graveside service, albeit under dire circumstances and brought home the devastation of this terrible pandemic. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the family.
Roy has spent most of his days working on his latest enhancements to the Anchor Plus application, which have turned into a mammoth undertaking, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel, at last!
A few yacht projects have also been completed, including the installation of emergency cutoff switches for the fuel-polishing systems in each engine and cushioning the bases of both water tanks to avoid any further cracks developing, as well as partially filling the tank that had the crack; observations are ongoing on the latter.
On Saturday, a phone call from Keenan aroused us much earlier than we’d have preferred, but we were delighted, nonetheless, to spend most of our morning chatting to him, given that he was feeling a little better and keen to relay all the gory details of his surgery. It also helped keep him company and occupy him while convalescing. A brief chat to him again yesterday assured us he was on the mend.
For some variety in our lives, we enjoyed another delicious takeaway from the Kapitan Indian restaurant on Friday night and Elaine enjoyed an afternoon matinee in her cabin yesterday afternoon.
Yesterday, however, was a major milestone for Malaysia. It certainly felt like the cavalry had arrived when we received the news in the morning that the first shipment of the Pfizer / BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines had arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, flown in using an Airbus 330-300 from Singapore's Changi International Airport, following its initial departure from Belgium and after transiting at Leipzig Halle Airport, Germany. Later in the day, an announcement was made by Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow, welcoming the arrival of vaccines in Penang, saying this was: “a significant day” and that: "we had very limited success in winning the battle against the pandemic over the past one year, and we've had to pay a heavy price as many have died or have been infected by the virus. Consequently, our socio-economic development and the people's livelihoods have also been severely affected”. It was his: “earnest hope that the mass vaccination programme will be successful in saving lives and livelihoods”.
Prior to the arrival of the vaccines, Malaysia's National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme Handbook was released to the public, detailing the phases, groups and steps to be followed to immunise the population, including foreigners, the first phase of which begins on 26th February with Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin getting the first jab along with Priority Group One, consisting of public and private healthcare personnel.
While Elaine cannot receive the vaccination, it was nonetheless, the first major step towards bringing the misery and suffering associated with this pandemic to an end in Malaysia and giving us our lifestyle back.
Today, Elaine was just thankful that she was able to get off Paw Paw and go for her exercise walk! It’s the little things in life that continue to make the difference in our lives; a beautiful sunrise, a text or phone call from a loved one, a video call with our smiling grandchildren, the otters coming to visit again, for the first time in ages, the aquarium of fish darting around the marina, a brief chat to our fellow cruising neighbours, a cup of coffee accompanied by a baked delight, a monitor lizard lazing in the water, giving each other a hug in the absence of all other hugs, a friendly nod to the security guards who stand on duty, day in and day out, the clear sunny skies, the afternoon breeze coming into the marina, the cooler nights, the birds chirping at dawn, discovering that our favourite restaurant in Straits Quay, Nomiya, has reopened, the relief of much needed yacht parts arriving, COVID-19 cases decreasing in parts of Malaysia, including on Penang Island, the list is endless, actually!
In between these appointments, we’ve kept busy by enjoying phone / video calls to loved ones, including time with Elaine’s brother in South Africa, Keenan in the US and Justine in England. For the most part, everyone is getting on with life as best they can under the circumstances, although lockdown fatigue is evident amongst all of us. It didn’t help matters that the MCO (Movement Control Order), which was due to expire in Malaysia today, was extended for a few States, including Penang, while others have been placed under the Conditional MCO, but with no inter-district or inter-state travel permitted across any State.
Elaine has kept herself busy by writing and painting, although bouncing around in the marina again, due to the rather brisk easterly winds, have resulted in a few clumsy strokes of the paint brush, while Roy has continued working on the Anchor Plus application and getting one or two yacht projects completed, including re-installing the water tank, although this hasn’t been filled as yet, since we need to run the other one dry so it too can be repositioned to avoid a similar fate of developing a crack.
We have also spent a little bit of time discovering aspects of the traditions associated with the Chinese New Year, which turns out to be quite a complex blend of obligations, besides rituals and celebrations. Apparently there are protocols and, if unknowingly, these are broken, can cause a great deal of stress and anxiety, since people feel offended.
Similar to Halloween, when children get excited about all the treats that they are going to accumulate or high school graduation, specifically in the US, where students expect envelopes of money from family and friends, which is supposed to be put towards their tertiary education, there is a Chinese New Year tradition that gets the children excited too; earning lots of “ang pow” money, while parents try to manage their associated budgets as the donors. However, this tradition, which literally translates as “red envelope” is one of the many joys associated with this important Spring Festival and a way for people to share wishes of good luck and prosperity.
There are a number of “rules” around “ang pow”, though, including the fact that these “red envelopes“ are only given during the 15 days of the Chinese New Year celebrations, although sometimes they are distributed during the Reunion Dinner on the eve of the Chinese New Year. Additionally, the envelopes need to be red as the name implies, but apparently pink or gold will suffice too; certainly not white, though, as this colour is reserved for sharing condolences.
“Ang pows” are always given by those from a “higher” status to those of a “lower” one, where status is usually determined by marital status and age ie married couples giving to unmarried individuals or adults giving to children. The envelopes should contain crispy, clean cash; not old notes, not a cheque, must definitely not be an inter-bank transfer and must not be an amount involving the number “4” as this is one of the most “out-of-bounds” numbers in the Chinese culture, representing death. As a side note, for this reason, Chinese will not want to stay in a hotel room with the number “4” in the room number, generally high-rise buildings will omit numbering the 4th floor and, instead, use “3A”, etc.
Furthermore, regardless of circumstances, one should not forget to give an “ang pow”, as these customs are taken very seriously and, when receiving an “ang pow”, it is to be accepted with two hands. This gesture seems to permeate throughout Malaysia, as we see it everywhere when money changes hands, even with ourselves.
The colour red, however, relates to a legend of a fierce dragon that was terrorising people in China, but was itself terrorised by the colour red. It is also a symbol of luck, good fortune, joy, and happiness. It represents celebration, vitality and fertility and is the traditional colour worn by Chinese brides to ward off evil.
For us, the red decorations and lanterns everywhere are helping to brighten up the surroundings and adding a little bit of joy during an otherwise dull circumstance in which we all find ourselves.
On a previous blog, we mentioned the story of how we had met at the Weather Bureau in South Africa. Well, during those initial days, we also met Olga, who was among the first women student meteorologist too and we have remained friends every since. Sadly, Olga lost a loved one to COVID-19, someone who Elaine has many fond memories of. May she rest in peace. Our condolences go out to Olga and the family at this terrible time. You are all in our thoughts and prayers.
After a phone call to Olga, we tried to set the awful news aside, definitely grateful for the distractions of enjoying a chat to Anne off Time Bandit following their safe arrival in the Maldives and to Craig off Il Sogno, who is still in Malaysia, like ourselves.
Afterwards, Elaine decided the best distraction for her was to paint and spend some time on her special project, while Roy got stuck into the generator repairs, but as Murphy would have it, after one problem was fixed, another materialised, requiring more parts to be ordered. It seems the universe has conspired against us and removed any hope of us setting sail anywhere, anytime soon. It doesn’t help matters that Customs is closed for the Chinese New Year and our solar controller and engine mounts are yet to be cleared.
Yesterday, while Elaine continued with her painting, Roy tackled the next yacht project, given that the parts required for this repair had arrived too; fixing the leak in our one water tank. Since our tanks are made from polyethylene, the only thing that sticks to polyethylene is polyethylene, so, first step was to seal the crack by melting polyethylene rods along the seam. Once that was completed, we had to reinforce the area in order to spread the weight of the tank in the locker to prevent the crack reopening again, when filled. All we can do now is hope that this repair is more robust than the others we’ve tried and that it lasts! Roy also helped Ben, off Kalou, to get all their sails down for maintenance and repairs.
Today we woke to another gorgeous sunny morning, with a light breeze. Being Valentine’s Day, Roy cooked Elaine breakfast as a treat and is now cooking up a storm in the galley for our romantic dinner for two later.
Prior to the latest lockdown, we’d hoped to return to the E&O hotel, where we’d enjoyed a fabulous Christmas, for a high tea or a romantic dinner, but, although in-house dining was permitted again from Friday, we decided against that idea, based on the number of COVID-19 cases still in this area and cases continuing to remain high across Malaysia. Staying onboard was simply the safest option!
In between his yacht projects and cooking exploits, Roy has also been feverishly working on his latest enhancements to the Anchor Plus application; definitely been a challenge, but he eventually had a breakthrough today. Elaine, however, whiled away yet another day in Straits Quay marina painting again; something that has become very therapeutic actually.
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone. Enjoy the precious time with your loved ones whom you can spend time with now. Hopefully this time next year, we’ll all be able to spend time with loved ones we’ve been unable to see because of the pandemic.
Feeling the strains of another health ordeal, Elaine spent her afternoon in bed, but felt much better when she surfaced a few hours later. As Roy rightly pointed out, Elaine is more traumatised by having to go through the whole experience rather than the actual procedure itself.
In the midst of all of this, Roy enjoyed a chat to Keenan, who was in Atlanta for his recurrent training and had time to pass between his briefing and the simulator session. The good news was that he’d also been awarded his bid to move to Delta’s Airbus fleet. While it’s not the captaincy he was awarded last year, but had rescinded because of the fiasco associated with the pandemic, it is a move to a more modern type of aircraft, which, in itself, will be more enjoyable to fly.
Our last communications for the day was an email from Time Bandit (Anne and Stuart), who we’re a night out from the Maldives and expected to arrive the following morning. It was, not only wonderful to hear from them, but to know they were almost there and had shaved a night off their passage. We’d spent every day wondering how they were getting on, given the reality check their departure had on us; realising that, while Paw Paw was prepared, we were not, neither mentally nor physically, for an ocean passage. Only a few days ago, we had dragged ourselves around all day after a very early morning start, wondering how on earth we will endure night watches again. Additionally, after more or less 15 months of sitting in a variety of marinas, our sailing skills are a tad rusty, a situation that is only going to get worse if we can’t do the East Malaysia rally or set sail for Thailand this year. At this rate, we’ll be making multiple sails around Penang Island and up and down the Malacca Strait to get back into the swing of things.
While yesterday Elaine felt better, but still needed her afternoon nap, she did work on her special project and finalised the yacht insurance for this next year, while Roy spent much of his time tracking down our solar controller and our engine mounts, discovered to be held up in Customs, but, fortunately, our generator parts were out for delivery and arrived this afternoon. The parts we need to repair our one water tank have also arrived, so yacht projects will be back in full swing before long.
On other news, the Malaysian authorities announced that in-house dining in restaurants and cafés were permitted again from yesterday, so it was lovely to see the Straits Quay mall open and patrons enjoying patio dining when Elaine went for her exercise walk.
Of course, this easing of restrictions came with a number of stricter SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) in the run up to the Chinese New Year celebrations and, although Chinese New Year decorations have added cheer to the surroundings and the “Display of Lights” on the 130-year-old, Kek Lok Si temple, which annually showcases more than 10,000 lights and Chinese lanterns, is an amazing sight, it will be a muted affair this year and such a contrast to the wonderful festivities we enjoyed last year.
The Chinese New Year is celebrated on the first day of the Chinese Lunar calendar, with each year ushering in a zodiac animal ruling sign, being the year of the Ox this year.
Celebrations begin on the eve of the Chinese New Year, which is tonight, when family members gather for a Reunion Dinner, which is then followed by the “Miaohui”, an event that runs for a number of days to showcase and promote Chinese traditional culture. “Chap Goh Meh” is the final day of a two week-long celebration, celebrated on the 15th day of the Chinese Lunar calendar. It is also known as “Chinese Valentine's Day”, since singles carry out the “Mandarin Tossing Ceremony” and look forward to welcoming their new love and happiness. For the Hokkien community, the festivities also include the celebration of the Jade Emperor’s Birthday, also known as the “Festival of the Heavenly God”, which will be celebrated on the 19th of February this year.
However, cultural elements will be held virtually through Social Media and Webinar platforms this year, given that the number of daily COVID-19 cases are still in the thousands, although some patches of “green” States have reappeared, which is reassuring that the measures are working. The stricter SOPs announced this week affect the Reunion Dinner, which permits up to 15 family members only to be in attendance, who stay within a 10Km radius, but excludes interstate or inter-district travel, prayer activities at temples / places of worship will be allowed for a maximum of 30 devotees, for a maximum of a 30 minute session on 11th, 12th and 19th of February, between 0600 and 1400 only, while adhering to the SOPs of mandatory face masks, social distancing and sanitisation work to be completed between every session. Prayers on the night of the Jade Emperor’s birthday can only be done within the vicinity of home. House visits, big gatherings, lion dance performances, festive parades, or lantern festivals are not allowed, interstate travel remains banned and dine-in at restaurants is restricted to a maximum of 2 people per table with social distancing of at least 1 metre.
While all this is obviously necessary to curtail the further spread of this terrible disease, it just won’t be the same and we’re so pleased we were in Penang last year to enjoy the full experience of these celebrations as intended; a definite highlight of our circumnavigation.
Unfortunately our day ended with upsetting news from Ireland; after Elaine’s folks had received their COVID-19 vaccination, Elaine’s mom had an incident about 20 minutes later, which resulted in a fall and fracturing her wrist. Unfortunately she has no recollection of what happened when she went to stand up, but fortunately their family doctor, who was at the vaccination centre and who had administered their shots, was on-hand to arrange an ambulance and all the followup care required to set her wrist and place it in plaster-of-Paris. What a carry-on; go for a vaccination and end up with broken bones, never mind the shock of a fall of someone her age and the associated aches, pains and bruises. Since we can’t be there to be of any help, making the fallout of this pandemic a disaster in every which way, all we can do is wish her a speedy recovery and hope there are no further consequences.
This morning we woke to the news that a 7.7 magnitude earthquake, at a depth on 10Km, occurred in the South Pacific, about 415Km east of New Caledonia, generating a small tsunami that was expected to reach between 0.3 and one metre above the tide level possible for Fiji, New Zealand and Vanuatu. Although a wave did hit Fiji, no damages occurred, thankfully, and authorities gave the all clear soon thereafter.
The rest of our day was just more of the same; daily chores, catching up on the blogs and working on our respective projects, as well as a phone call to Ireland to see how Elaine’s folks were doing after their ordeal yesterday. Unfortunately Elaine’s mom is still in a lot of pain, but painkillers are helping. The worst part was that her wrist had to be reset without any local anaesthetic, since she’d just had the vaccination, so gas and air had to suffice. What a shock for two elderly people to get over, when they were both already apprehensive and overwhelmed at having to get the vaccination. Now they have weeks of managing somehow without any help because letting anyone in to assist them is too risky in itself!
And on that cheerful note, happy Chinese New Year everyone! Let’s hope the year of the Ox is far better than the year of the Rat!
On Friday, after a late night on Thursday, chatting to Elaine’s folks in Ireland, it was getting up early to make a phone call to our ex-property management company in the US, that left us both feeling like we were trying to recover from an overnight sail for the rest of the day, testament to the struggle we’re going to have when we eventually do set sail.
The call was worth it, though, as funds had been successfully recovered, via their debt collection efforts, from a previous tenant, who had left one of our properties in an unforgivable mess. That was followed by a chat to Keenan before Roy went for his walk and Elaine went back to bed.
With the sun beating down on the cockpit from sunrise, Elaine decided to move her gentle stretch exercises to the late afternoons / early evenings instead, to take advantage of the cool sea breezes that have started to develop around that time of the day and the shadow of the Straits Quay mall which falls over Paw Paw as the sun moves west. Otherwise, besides a chat to Elaine’s sister in Ireland that night, we had a lazy day.
On Saturday we noticed the Chinese New Year lanterns were being put back up around the marina and promenade, after they were removed a week or two ago. We have no idea why they were removed to begin with, but the surroundings are looking rather cheery again.
Also, fed up of our gluten-free experiments in the galley, we decided to make proper Irish soda bread for breakfast, the first time in more than a year and it was like manna from heaven. This together with the occasional French pastry will remain Elaine’s gluten indulgences; life is simply too short for anything less!
Aside from that, Roy has continued work on the enhancements to the Anchor Plus application and we’re hoping that a new release will be available soon. Yesterday and today, he was kept busy getting some yacht maintenance and early spring cleaning chores completed, including the regular weekly wash of Paw Paw’s exterior, giving the holding tanks a fresh water rinse, cleaning the barbecue and replacing some of its innards which had rusted, cleaning the air-conditioning filters and attending to the house batteries.
Elaine has busied herself with her own special project, to be announced in a few weeks, catching up on correspondence and getting back into her meditation.
Additionally, we celebrated the fact that 40 year ago we met at the South African Weather Bureau. Roy, and a group of his unruly fellow students, of whom Roy was the most notorious, had just graduated and Elaine, one of four of the bureau’s first ever women “student meteorologists”, had just been recruited and was getting ready to start the sponsored programme. During our first week, we heard all about our male counterparts, in particular, about Roy and, by the start of the following week, curiosity had got the better of the new graduates, when they came to “check out” the new recruits. The rest is history! It’s certainly been quite the adventure since that first hello, including Roy leaving for his Gough Island expedition as Team Lead and Chief Meteorologist soon after our engagement that same year. His 15-month expedition took him to Tristan du Cunha as well, where he decided to test what would happen if he drank a beer in the street, given that he was told it was illegal, but no one had ever tried it before!
During those 15 months, our only communications was a fortnightly “phone call” via the SSB/HF radio on the island, patched into the central telecommunication system in South Africa and a limit of 1 telex letter per week, not to exceed 50 words. How technology has changed!
Our annoyance came about after Elaine decided to solicit information about the medical facilities in the Seychelles on a Seychelles Facebook group she recently joined, having previously received a very bleak description from a fellow cruising friend who completed the Indian Ocean crossing last year and was in the Seychelles at the time. During our initial research we also investigated and received confirmation on the various haulout options, the temporary import duty on yachts, the visa renewal process, etc, in the Seychelles and acquired our permit to Chagos as an insurance policy, to give us somewhere to stop en route. All of this was undertaken to determine the feasibility of, at least, making it to the Seychelles this year, taking us one step closer to completing our circumnavigation by getting the Indian Ocean Crossing leg completed. Our plan then was to assess the overall situation pertaining to the pandemic once we arrived in the Seychelles before progressing any further or to remain in the Seychelles, if need be.
The feedback, however, on the medical aspects was the primary reason we decided to scrap that plan, since it presented far too many logistical issues and uncertainties of trying to get all the way to South Africa to avoid the increased risk of Elaine not receiving adequate care for an extended period of time.
That decision left us with the alternatives of either staying in Malaysia and doing the East Malaysia rally to Borneo, visas permitting, or trying to get into Thailand. With both these options up in the air too because of the MCO in Malaysia and Thailand stopping the Special Tourist Visa for cruisers, we’re now sitting ducks at the mercy of the visa amnesty arrangement in Malaysia, but lo and behold, we come to find out via the responses received from total strangers on the Facebook group that Seychelles actually has, not just one, but two private hospitals, as well as a rheumatologist and pathology laboratories where blood tests can be done, in some instances, while you wait. To say we were livered would be putting it mildly. The decision now, of course, is whether or not to still do the crossing this year via the South Indian route, given that the window for the northern route is closing faster than we can be ready to set sail, while we await the delivery of our solar controller and the engine mounts, never mind getting these installed, then receiving the necessary repair items we need to fix the reoccurring leak in our one water tank, last fixed in Port Dickson and getting our yacht insurance finalised. No matter which way we sliced it, though, we consoled ourselves that staying put for now was ultimately still the best option for us, considering the current state of the pandemic worldwide, the possibility of countries going into lockdown and closing their borders at a moment’s notice and various new strains of the virus popping up everywhere, mixed with the syringe shortages, delays in vaccine deliveries and the rollout thereof.
Regardless, by yesterday morning Elaine was feeling the effects of this annoyance, a bad night’s sleep and the extra long walk she took with Roy on Tuesday, taking us along the southern promenade after working our way through the houses for a change of scenery, so her day didn’t involve too much physical activity. Instead she dealt with our yacht insurance renewal, rescheduled Roy’s dermatology appointment because February seemed to sneak up on us rather quickly and we actually forgotten all about it, finalised some medical insurance tasks and then spent her afternoon painting. Our delight, however, was Roy waking to a video of William partaking in a training exercise of sorts, we think, for either soccer, flag football or baseball. Sadness soon followed, though, on reading the news that Captain Tom Moore had passed away from COVID-19; news that had immediately followed our last blog highlighting the amazing achievements of this remarkable individual at the age of 100. May he rest in peace.
By yesterday evening neither of us felt like cooking, so, instead we decided to explore slightly further afield and embraced the culinary delights of Penang Island by ordering takeaways from the Kapitan Indian restaurant, a short walk from the marina. Simply delicious!
Besides the limited yacht project of jet-washing the heads to remove the difficult areas of mould / mildew in preparation for redoing the sealant, Roy spent yesterday and today working on additional enhancements to the Anchor Plus application, while Elaine had a very domesticated day today; baking Cranberry Oatmeal cookies and an Oatmeal Quick Loaf, but not before she enjoyed her mid-morning walk.
While the continued sights of closed mall stores, tables and chairs piled up on closed restaurant and café patios and the deserted surroundings are a constant reminder of the lockdown, there were still signs of life continuing in a fashion and plenty to enjoy along the way; beautiful clear sunny skies, a flock of cranes fishing on the rocks at low tide, fishing boats hauling in their catch, construction workers having almost completed the bridge to the reclaimed island, cheerful Chinese New Year music piped through the sound system of the Straits Quay courtyard and the beautifully decorated Chinese New Year display and arched “tunnel”, which Elaine never misses the opportunity to pass through.
Our days came to a close in much the same way as every other day these days; chatting to family and friends in different time zones or streaming a movie, while tucked up in bed!
