Hello Again To Family and Friends
It has been a long time since you have heard from us and with people now contacting us to see if we are still afloat, here comes an overdue letter with a bit of an update.
Yes SHAMAL is nearly ready to begin the next leg of her adventures. We arrived back in the United Arab Emirates on the 15th October after a four month holiday back in New Zealand over a very cold winter there, and a very hot summer here in the Emirates. We returned to Fujairah International Marina where we had left SHAMAL in the water for the summer. It was still too hot to sleep on board as the temperature was over 40deg. C. when we opened her up, but, we were really pleased how she had stood up to the heat of the summer. No nasty smells, no bugs, and after a quick dive Alec was pleased to see the hulls had hardly any growth on them apart from the props, which looked like small Coral Reefs. Also there was a nice coating of sandy dust all over her. Nothing that a good wash down couldn’t put right. So it was back to Dubai and to Brigitte’s lovely cool apartment. I was so glad we had taken 95% of the food off as it would have spoiled in those temperatures.
