Two good dives yesterday and another two today with 'Scuba-Evolution'.

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A stroll up to the Scuba-Evolution dive shop and I book 2 dives for tomorrow. The first diving since the wonderful 'anchor dive' in Limon. Can't see it being as bad as then though!!!

Then, continuing my stroll around the Lonely Beach 'town' there are lots of places to rent scooters for 150 baht per day, this wasn't up for rent but am sure there's a story behind it...

Then onto one of the local bars for a Chang beer and some food:

Dropping everyone off on the way I'm staying at the Worapura Resort on Lonely Beach whilst I'm here:

A very nice, quiet place and not a bad view:

I'm off down to Koh Chang on Tuesday to do some diving.

A one hour flight from Suvarnabhumi to Trat:

Into the overly priced taxi, a ride to the ferry and across to Koh Chang:

Bangkok is terrible for traffic with the exception being a Sunday.

Went to Siam Paragon then to the Erawan Shrine:

After that, onto CenterWorld and a look at the underwater photo exhibition:

Back to the hotel and out for a meal to the local Korean BBQ restaurant:

Lots of sea food, a couple of beers (for me), a good night and a great way to spend a Sunday.

My 30-day visa-on-arrival is due to expire and I want to stay here a little while longer.

I look at going to the Immigration Office in Bangkok but they will only give me one weeks extension because of my visa-on-arrival. This will cost 1,900 baht.

If I go to the Cambodian border, I can get another 30-days. There is a coach that leaves at 9.30 am, provides movies on-board, lunch and is air-conditioned and is back in Bangkok by 6.30 pm. It costs 2,000 baht. No option.

It turns out the coach is the most comfortable I have been on and the process is very straightforward.

The only problem (for me anyway) is that the Thai government have changed the law: if you enter Thailand from a land border [having initially entered Thailand with a visa-on-arrival] as I have done, then you only get a 15-day visa extension instead of a 30-day one.

C'est la vie.

Went to the temple at Chachoengsao today.

Anya, On, Jane and myself were driven by their friend, Prit to this large temple about 1 hour drive East of Bangkok.

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Well, if you can read this post it is!

Had some 'hassle's with my previous hosting company and domain name and all that 'stuff'. Oh what joy!

Pleased to see that it appears to have been rectified for the time being.

I'll post the full details on here in a day or so but just pleased that it's back up and running.

I flew to Phuket and met Chris Owen at the airport.

We then drove to Chalong and Chris got me the study materials for the courses...

Quite a bit to take on-board with studying, knowledge reviews, practical demonstrations, writtene exams...you know, the normal score for these kind of courses.

Four days of 'hard' work and exams and I passed the Emergency First Response (and Secondary), Care for Children, EFR Instructors, EANx and EANX instructors.

Big thanks to Chris Owen for all his help during the week and also to Mat for the EFR course and Tim who was the victim during my EFR instructors.

Thanks to all who have informed me that my website is no longer 'visible'.

To cut a long story short...

My site and domain name have been hosted by UKHosts4U for a number of years and I have paid an annual fee for both. This year I decided to move both to another hosting company.

Because of this and the fact that they were losing my custom, it turns out that this domain transfer process was not helped along by the former hosting company.

When the new hosting company initiated the transfer it just didn't happen smoothly. Don't know why it didn't, it should have done, but it didn't.

When the site was successfully transferred to the new hosts it turns out that my domain name had expired so they just made it inactive. They never advised me of the expiry day, the actual cost or even how to pay them, just let it expire!!!

I, of course wanted to transfer the domain name to the new hosts but the old companies rules state the domain name must stay with them for 30 days - after that it can be transferred across but, guess what? Yes, I have to pay - w*****s!!!

3 things I would just like to clarify:

1) Would I use them again - NO!
2) Would I recommend them to anyone else - NO!
3) Am I happy with their services - go on, have a guess?

Apparently, I was wrong with the previous post...

It appears that Anapod has done something to the iTunes database and though I cannot now view my files through iTunes they are still there on the iPod and have NOT been wiped as I initially thought.

I am, obviously, very pleased about this and at the very least it gives me an option recovering the files (through Tansee iPod Transfer (which does work properly)).

To do this, of course, is going to cost me money as I now need an external hard drive to reload my iTunes library - thanks Anapod, thanks iTunes.

At least I haven't lost all my stuff though, as for Anapod...wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole!

As for iTunes...still hate it!

It's terrible (and that's not the four letter word I used!).

Because of my recent reinstall of the OS I downloaded the latest iTunes and installed it.

Having learnt from past 'problems' about synchronisation I opened iTunes and deselected ALL 'automatic sync' settings (or so I thought!!) BEFORE attaching a device.

I obviously missed one!

I have two ipods (lucky me :-).

The old one is 60 GB and has all my music on it. Too many tacks on the Clipper race (flying across the saloon once too often) meant the battery is knackered and can only be used in the base station.

The other, new one, is 160 GB and has around 700 movies on it: all the Friends episodes, Band of Brothers, Bilko, Dads Army, Green Wing, Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, Shameless, the list goes on....I have spent ages, ages converting these from the DVD to iPod format.

Anyway, I tried a program called Anapod the other day. It's an application that allows you to view your entire iPod in Windows Explorer without needing iTunes.

Unbeknown to me, iTunes decides it's going to sync my iPod with my laptop.

Now, my laptop has about 10 GB free space on it, nowhere near enough room for the 200+ GB of movies stored on an external HDD that is IN THE UK!!

Jane was going to borrow my iPod today so I checked it and, lo and behold, it's completely wiped - NO MUSIC, NO MOVIES, nothing!

How stupid is that? No confirmation required, no question about, "Hey hang on Mr iTunes, here's an iTunes folder with nothing in it and a device which is loaded with stuff, I know, let's synchronise the laptop to the iPod without asking the user if he really wants to lose ALL his data - let's just DO IT"

Why would I want to do that?

I can think of NO situation at all where I would completely want to wipe an iPod or iPhone WITHOUT being asked first.

You don't format a drive without an, "Come on now, Are You Really Sure You Want to Do This-type Question?" and this is, in effect, what they have done.

I HATE THEM!!

Not sure if this would be allowed at Sizewell:

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I purchase a copy of Windows XP Pro, Service Pack 3 and try and upgrade my existing installation.

Unfortunately, this does not work so I take the disk back and get a replacement.

This doesn't work either so, throwing caution to the wind (and my laptop is running sooooooo slow) I decide to do a clean install.

This works very well but, of course, all my installed software is no longer there.

Bangkok's a great place for getting 'new' stuff though :-)

I remember - from my visit last year - that from the airport to Bangkok centre we go through at least one, and possibly two, sets of toll booths and it takes around 25-30 minutes for the journey.

Unfortunately, the taxi driver decides to do it 'on the cheap' and decides we're going to get off the toll roads straight after leaving the airport.

(Traffic on a good day)

To show me how well he knows the area he stops at a lay-by outside of Suvarnhabumi and asks a fellow taxi driver directions...!

After about 1.5 hours stuck in traffic (and still about 6km away from my hotel) he decides to get back onto the toll road and we're at the hotel in about another 40 minutes (and most of this time was spent trying to get back on the toll road)!

Welcome to Bangkok!

At the helm of 'their' new car, Gibbo picks me up and drives me down to Heathrow Airport for my flight to Bangkok.

Apart from some trouble on the Acle straight, which delays us for an hour, not much in the way of traffic and we make fairly good time - ta mate!

Flight to Thailand is okay. Not much in the way of exciting movies on-board but I watch the new Tom Cruise film, Valkyrie, which is about the plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944.

Didn't think too much of the film to be honest with you. May have been a combination of tiredness, red wine, etc., but not one I would rush out to buy.

Have decided to do some more diving courses.

I need to redo my Emergency First Response (EFR) Course as it's kinda expired but also want to do my EFR Instructors course.

Additionally, I've always been meaning to take my Enriched Air Nitrox (EANx) course AND I want to do the instructors course for that.

I decided to contact a few dive centres in the UK (one in London, one in Portsmouth) and a couple of Health & Safety teaching companies (for the EFR).

Well, to cut a long story short....

The price for doing the first aid courses was quoted as being around £400 plus of course accommodation needed, travel, etc. Ok!

I emailed a dive center in Phuket and enquired about the cost of courses with them...

Chris Owen, Course Director with Indepth Diving has quoted me 23,500 THB for the lot: that's £430 (approximately) and includes manuals, PIC[s], etc.

Guess I'm off to Thailand then...

Received another text message from Col this afternoon telling me that the teams Jo plays for: Stokesley/North Riding/England U13's, have just emerged victorious in the home internationals!

They beat Ireland on penalties in the semi finals and then beat Wales 4 - 0 in the final to take the championship!

Absolutely awesome Jo and all the team from Stokesley.

Where's the U13 European competition played Col?

Sarah invited me around for Sunday lunch () and just before she up and prepared and cooked it, just got a photo of her working in the garden (two-handed working I see ):

...and here's one of Sam providing his mum and dad with more ammunition to embarrass him in front of his mates in a few years time:

Gibbo has dipped his hand in his pocket and purchased Sky Sports for the upcoming Lions tour of South Africa.

Just to make sure the set is working, we had two cup games on this weekend which need watching: Northampton v Bourgoin and Leicester v Leinster.

Both games were entertaining, a good victory for Northampton against and ill-disciplined and punchy French-side (haven't heard that one before have we?) and hard luck to Leicester were outclassed for most of the game against a strong Leinster team.

John sent me a photo which had been scanned by his boy, Chris, who had received it off Chris Claydon:

On Tour in Paris, 1994 (?)

(L-R) Chris Claydon, Me, John Miller, Dave Prescott, Andy Ford)

No, nothing most of you would have heard about, but...

A few weeks ago (and on a previous post) I mentioned about Col's eldest boy, Jo, playing for North Riding in the U13 'Northern' football championships, which they won.

Well...

I received a text from Col this afternoon telling me that they had won the All England championship played this afternoon at the Walker Stadium in Leicester.

Next is the Home Internationals, next week at the Reebok Stadium (I believe).

Go Jo, go Jo, go Jo...!!!!

The new hard drive arrived today (about 10 days earlier than promised) so that was good.

Out with the old hard drive:

...and in with the new:

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Now to get it working.

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I haven't done this kind of thing for a few years now so onto the internet to get assistance from those in the know.

Go through the FDISK and Formatting of the new drive and then, when I boot from the XP cd, keep getting the following error message:

File isapnp.sys caused an unexpected error (4096) at line 5882 in d:\xpclient\base\boot\setup\setup.c

Various sites say it could me a RAM problem, other sites say it could be a few other problems...ho hum!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I manage to reinstall from the Sony Recovery Disks and all is now well.

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Well, apart from the XP Pro, SP3 software I ordered 2 weeks ago from PCONESTOPSHOP, still hasn't arrived.

After phoning them 5 times and emailing them at least 10 times [without one single reply or acknowledgement], the person I spoke to said they'd emailed me and told me it was out of stock - NO YOU DIDN'T.

If it was out of stock then why did your website say it was in stock?

Cancelled it and won't ever use them again.

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So, I went on to Amazon.co.uk and ordered a new one from a reseller.
It was twice the price of the ONESTOPSHITE but hopefully this one will arrive - hurry up please

Worked like a dream

13 minutes for the upgrade, slightly longer for the application/information restore, et voila!

Now why couldn't it have been that easy on the previous attempts?

Big thanks to 'Geoff'.

Decided to upgrade my iPhone today.

I've tried twice before with this version of the firmware and it hasn't worked.

Have just started the process...will see how long it takes and if it's successful.

Saw this just now on the BBC website...

Police officers to patrol buses

My Sony Vaio decided to give up yesterday.

I got a few error messages and a system shut-down until finally, it wouldn't start again.

In went the XP disk to reboot and reinstall but that didn't work: only a message that a certain 'file' on the 'D' drive was kaput/couldn't find it.

Strange this as my 'C' drive is my boot drive...

Anyway, in went the Ghost disks - nope!

In went the original Vaio recovery disks...and finally, the error message of 'Cannot find the hard drive...check connections...'.

Stripped the laptop apart and the hard drive connection looked okay (as far as I could tell). Nothing for it...another drive needed.

Managed to get one on eBay for £60 (160 GB capacity), only problem is it'll take up to 2 weeks to get here from the States...ah well!

Fortunately [I think], everything on that laptop is backed-up [he says hopefully ].

Saw this link via a mate of a mates blog site:

Stunning Photos of London

Was shopping online for a new pair of flip-flops (as you do).

Timberland had a sale on but decided not to buy these as, according to the description, they'd be better off for deep sea diving:

...and they say they're lightweight...mmmm.

Real reason I didn't buy them was they only had size 8 - honest!

Went up North at the weekend to see Col, Claire and family.

I haven't seen them for a few years so was looking forward to it (but not the drive :-)

First up was to Manchester where Jo[seph], their eldest, was playing football for North Riding/Stokesley in the North of England U13 football cup finals.

I missed the first game (which they won) but saw the next two which were both draws. They could only qualify for the semi-finals as 'best runner up' if they beat another side (on equal points) in a penalty shoot-out.

Nail-biting stuff and Jo's side get through on a 5-4 penalty win with some excellent penalties.

Next was the semi-final and they got to play the team who they drew with in their last game of the qualifiers.

This time they were victorious and were through to the final (against a team from Manchester).

Tired legs throughout and 0 - 0 at full-time saw 2 x 5 minute halves to see if the deadlock could be broken: still 0 - 0 at the end...now the dreaded penalties again.

Again some excellent penalties and at the end of 5 each, both sides had missed one. Now sudden death...

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Up steps the Stokesley/North Riding player and slots it in the corner.

Next is Manchester, up runs their player, hits it to the right corner and an excellent save from the Stokesley keeper - Jo's team are victorious!

An absolutely great day (weather aside of course) and I got to see some great football.

After that it was a bite to eat in Manchester and then over to Col & Claire's for a few beers and then a head down after a knackering day!

Well done to Jo and all the Stokesley team and good luck in the England finals to be played in Leicester next month.

That's in rugby not football (Cardiff got trounced 6 - 0 away to Preston in football).

Watched the Gloucester v Cardiff EDF Final on tv yesterday.

There was only one side in it as Cardiff systematically took Gloucester apart.

17 points ahead at half-time there was only going to be one winner with the Blues running in a further 4 tries in the last 15 minutes of the games for a 12 - 50 victory

Two days later they are back and refit the serviced injectors and fuel pump.

A quick 20 minute sea trial and the engine appears to be okay.

We moor inside the Corinth yacht Harbour and prepare to leave the yacht.

Claire, Dave and myself have been on the yacht for 15 days and are 38 nm from our start point.

With 3000 still to go, at this rate, it'll be 2014 before we're finished and all of us are extremely fed up with the job, the delays, the yacht, the overall neglect and, basically, all of it.

I know these things happen but the yacht has been sitting in Marina Delta for nearly 8 months and nothing was done on it to maintain it.

As a delivery skipper/crew, you expect to have to do a certain amount to prepare the yacht for the passage but a line has to be drawn when basic 'things' aren't done.

Ah well, can't win 'em all, back to the UK then.

An engineer is sourced from Athens and comes to the yacht.

He quickly diagnoses the problems as:

- water in the diesel.
- possible problem with the injectors.
- HP fuel pump.

Here's the engine running at 1900 rpm:

Him, and his oppo, empty the fuel tank and there is no evidence of water in the diesel!

They then remove the injectors and fuel pump and depart the yacht.

Well, to cut a long story short and without getting too graphic, the 'reaming' I had from the port authorities here would have been a tad better had I gone equipped with a large jar of vaseline!!

I was always under the impression that assistance for ships in an emergency situation had to be provided under International Maritime Law. Guess I kinda got that wrong.

Even though I never saw the inside of a Greek jail, there was a time on the Monday when I thought I might! The authorities were @$#%&@#'ds.

Anyway, the situation (engine-wise) was escalated (there's not much in terms of yacht support in Corinth) and George, the previous owner, came to the yacht to assist.

Both of us went to the port authorities and, surprisingly :-), as he is Greek, the whole [paperwork] situation was quickly resolved, and very amicably at that - strange that - bastards!

1.3 nm SW of the canal is the Corinth Marina.

Headsail out, engine on and we head towards the marina.

Manage to moor safely in the main harbour the fun starts.

As the yacht was orignally owned by a Greek (now it has a Finnish flag) I was told by the Port Police in Athens that as I was leaving and wasn't stopping then I didn't need a transit log.

As our next port of call was Reggio di Calabria in Italy the plan was too save some cash and head straight there - no wind so we had enough fuel to motor.

Problem is, now we have stopped, albeit in an emergency situation, there's now a big problem [for me].

One problem after another...each time getting worse.

The stern gland was properly repaired this time by the previous owner George.

We then headed off at 0800 the next morning (5th) and motored all the way to the east end of the Corinth Canal. Tied up, paid the canal transit fee and then, when permitted, slipped lines and followed another yacht into the canal.

And then the next problem started. The engine started fluctuating - BADLY - revving low, racing high and white smoke billowing out of the exhaust.

Halfway through the engine sounded like it was going to die! More comfortable at lower revs we nursed the yacht to the end of the canal (gawd knows what the fine would be for breaking down and blocking the canal?).

I called the canal authroities and requested permission to stop at the west-end dock but was told to go to the marina...

Will we make it?

Managed to get an 'engineer' yesterday who came to the yacht and 'fixed' the leak from the stern gland.

Everything seemed fine, no water coming in when stationary, engine on in neutral or when on and in gear, so all up at 0515, cup of coffee and slipped from Marina Delta at 0600.

At 0700, on checking the engine bay, we see that we've got more water coming in now, lots more than a couple of days ago.

Turn straight around and another hour back to Marina Delta.

Won't tell you my thoughts of the bodge job by the local 'engineer' but hopefully the problem is now sorted and we can leave tomorrow, get through the Corinth Canal and get clear of Greece AND finish this delivery.

We left Alimos marina shortly after 12 o'clock to try and make the Corinth Canal before nightfall.

Two hours out of Alimos and a check of the engine bay showed lots of water in it again - too much!

The impeller is running fine but this time the leak is from the stern gland - and the water is streaming in.

We stop the boat and tighten the flange, this appears to have stemmed the flow so we continue.

An hour later, the engine bay is rapidly filling up again and the leak is as before...not good!

It's too risky to push on so we head back to where we left and, as there's no room for us, then head 2nm north to Marina Delta...back where we began.

Only problem is there is literally nothing here so it may prove difficult to source an engineer.

Ah well, tomorrow's another day

Arrived in Athens and got onto the yacht at about 10 pm.

Another pleasant journey courtesy of One Railway (or wahtever it is they call themselves these days) and EasyJet .

Spent the first couple of days going over and sorting out the boat ready to deliver it the 3,000 nm to Kiel and realising, in the process, what joys a 21-year old boat bring.

Apart from the general weariness of the boat there are the blocked sink outlets, blocked shower drains, substandard cooker, no manuals for anything, no boat diagrams, in fact, very little; guess I've just been spolit in the past.

Also, at Marina Delta in Athens, there is NOTHING here, nothing!

It was built for the Olympic games and, in subsequent years, nothing else has been added: no shops, bars, restaurants, chandlers, fuel pontoon, nowt!!

As a result, we moved the boat 2 nm this morning to Marina Alimos to finish provisioning, to refuel, take on water and then to depart...oh no!

On our huge trip down here (an hour), the engine bay was starting ti fill up with water.

This was flooding out of the impeller housing and, seeing as the impeller is okay, seems that the seals within the housing itself are washed...

Now to see tomorrow if we can get replacements...ho hum!!

Fly out of Gatwick on Friday afternoon to join the yacht for delivery to Kiel, Germany.

This one will be a fairly long trip taking around about a month.

Weather's grim at the moment but I hope it'll improve in the Eastern Med by the end of the weekend.

I have two experienced crew with me on this one, Dave and Claire so should be a good one

Went down Looney's pub to watch the championship decider between Wales and Ireland.

Ireland were chasing their first Grand Slam victory for 61 years and Wales were playing for the Triple Crown and the Championship title.

Beating Ireland would give them the Triple Crown, beating them by 13 clear points would also give them the championship.

Unfortunately, and this is one of the beauties of rugby, the English victory over Scotland, the French hammering of the Italians and the last minute drop-goal by Ireland (giving them a 15 - 17 victory) meant Wales came fourth in this years Six Nations.

It was a very exciting game, edge-of-seat stuff in the second half and full credit to the irsih for their victory.

Now to look forward to the British Lions in May...

Still waiting to hear about a possible transat from La Rochelle to Fort Lauderdale I receive an email about a possibility of another delivery from Athens to Kiel, Germany

About 6 weeks ago I tried to upgrade the firmware on my iPhone.

I've used QuickPwn in the past and it has worked flawlessly. Unfortunately, this time the software wouldn't recognise my phone: it works to synchronise with iTunes but QuickPwn just doesn't see it.

I tried again today with a new download and install of the necessary files but again, QuickPwn doesn't see the phone...bugger!

Googled for assistance but no luck I'm afraid.

Will try again when the next upgrade is available I guess.

I was looking forward to watching the Six Nations rugby this afternoon: the Italy v Wales game being the first one I have seen this season.

Unfortunately the game (from a Welsh point of view) was very poor and I have to admit I was very pleased to hear the final whistle and see Wales win 20 - 15.

I sincerely hope they do far better against Ireland next weekend in Cardiff.

Well the flight from Cancun to New York is 2/3rds empty so is a pleasant 4-5 hours (if you know what I mean).

The four hours at JFK go fairly quickly and the good news is I get an SMS message from Gibbo saying he'd drive down to Heathrow and give me a lift back up to GY - nice one mate!

Unfortunately the NY to LHR flight is pretty full (well it is in cattle-class)
and I have a crap seat with some 'peon' behind me who keeps 'hitting' my seat and prevents me getting any decent kip.

The in-flight entertainment has some programmes I want to see so I watch the film Slumdog Millionaire (I read the book last year) and finally manage to get to see the US version of The Office.

I think the UK version of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's series is hilarious but after watching three and a half episodes of the US version with not one single chuckle I admitted defeat and switched to the film (which was okay - normal score though, the book was better).

We arrive in Heathrow a little earlier than planned and after a short wait in the freezing cold, Gibbo arrives and drives me back to my mothers' house in GY.

Good to be back eh?