First of all we had to haul the boat out of the water as last years bottom paint did not stand up well to 3,000 sea miles. The painting and underwater repairs and maintenance took us a month to complete and we re-launched in August.
In September we were offered a boat which is for sale in Durban South Africa. It looked like a good deal and so we flew to Durban to take a look. It turned out to have been somewhat misrepresented and it was not exactly what we wanted! So we decided that while there we should make the most of it and turned our stay into something of a holiday.
We flew from Durban to Cape Town, which is a two hour flight. Cape Town we found to be much more friendly and attractive than Durban and we enjoyed two weeks of very nice spring weather there.
We met a lot of very nice people and finally left with a strong feeling that someday soon we will return. There is in fact a very good possibility that we are going to build a new boat there, in which case we will be living in Cape Town for several months next year.
For the near future, we are planning to sail north to Phuket as soon as the weather improves, and while we are waiting for that we plan to visit Penang for a few days to do some shopping and visit friends. We expect to be in this area until the end of this year, by which time we should have a plan for next year! In the mean time Lotus Mantra is for sale. We have her advertised in a number of places both local and internationaly. We have had some interest, but as yet we have not been offered any money, we live in hopes!
All for this update talk to you soon!