Esper Refit 40 – pushpit extension; buat ordination; loi kathrong

It’s been a busy week both in the boatyard and in Satun town. We’ve finally extended our pushpit, and we were invited to the Loi Kathrong full-moon lantern festival and the ordination of a young monk.

Weekly Video Round-Up

This week’s video is a fairly short one and covers our pushpit extension (quite exciting), my plumbing (not exciting), a lantern festival (very exciting) and a monk’s ordination (quite extraordinary, for me at least).

Pushpit extension

First the boring boaty update. We’ve extended our pushpit rails right up to the gate, allowing us to lash more things to it on long passages (jerry cans, liferaft etc).

Lovely, isn’t it?

Loi Kathrong

During the week yard manager Jia and his wife Julie took a few of us out for dinner in Satun, followed by the Loi Kathrong festival. I had written all about this in a previous draft and then lost the whole lot and I can’t be bothered to write all about it again. However the video has a good explanation of this ancient full-moon festival. In a nutshell, ‘crowns’ made from banana trunks covered in leaves, flowers, incense and candles, are launched into the river in order to rid oneself of anger, negativity and general bad vibes.

Yi Peng

Loi Kathrong coincides with Yi Peng, another full-moon festival. This is about the Buddhist concept of ‘merit’, which again is explained more in the video clip.

It’s a great family occasion when locals (and yachties) get to play with fire.

Standing on the new bridge in Satun families gathered to light paper lanterns and launch them into the night sky. It was quite a sedate affair here in Satun but in larger cities the entire night sky can be covered in lanterns, much to the frustration of aeroplane pilots.

People of all ages were out…

Nung’s Buat Ordination

This is going to be a separate blog post but I include a mention here as there is some video footage in this week’s clip. Nung, brother to Un and Moo who have been working on Esper, underwent buat, which is the Buddhist ordination into the local monastery that most young Thai men undertake at some point in their lives.

I was fortunate to have been invited to this event, even more so to be allowed to photograph every aspect of the ceremony, which lasts a few hours including a breakfast feast. I was even allowed into the initial hair-cutting ceremony, attended by only mum, dad, brother and aunt. Here’s a teaser:

What’s Next?

I was promised our upholstery to be completed by next Friday…

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