Snow City birthday. And Pink Dolphins!

Another birthday for our granddaughter aboard the boat named after her.  Elisabeth, a/k/a BeBe, celebrated her 9th birthday aboard S/V BeBe on August 12, 2010.  She is beginning to think this should be an annual event.  She celebrated her 6th birthday with us in Bonaire; she celebrated her 8th birthday with us in Cairns, Australia; and now her 9th with us in Singapore.  And she has all intentions of celebrating her 10th birthday with us next summer in Greece.  I baked a chocolate cake with plain white frosting (as per her request).  I don't have food coloring so I tinted the frosting with grape jelly to write "Happy 9th Birthday Elisabeth" on it in a very girlie pink.

We went to Snow City to celebrate -- again, as per her request.  Bill refused to go back into that cold; so it was just Elisabeth, Zachary, Aaron and me freezing in the19F temperature.  We paid for 1 hour and managed to stay inside there almost the full allotted time.  Aaron and I made a deal with the kids -- we would slide down the hill only one time and then we were leaving.  BeBe and Zach trudged up the hill and slid down many times, but Aaron and I stuck to our guns and we did it only once and then high-tailed it out of there.  Our noses were freezing!!!  The parkas provided by Snow City were quite warm; and I rented heavy gloves for the kids so they could throw the snow; but our noses were freezing.  You slide down the hill on packed snow while sitting/laying atop a small inner tube.  The tubes work great except that your butt is dragging in the icy snow at least half-way down that 100-ft hill.  It was cold!!  The heat and humidity of outdoor Singapore felt wonderful after being in that cold chamber for an hour.

I spent almost all day Friday doing laundry.  During the afternoon Bill and Aaron took the kids to the swimming pool for several hours.  The pool at this marina is very nice.  It is especially nice because it is shaded by adjacent tall buildings during the afternoon.  A great place to spend a hot afternoon.

Saturday we took the local small shuttle bus to the Beach Station; then the Blue Line bus to Siloso Point.  One Degree 15 Marina is located on Sentosa Island of Singapore, and there are tons of tourist attractions and things to do on Sentosa Island.  The marina is situated on the eastern tip of the island.  On the western tip of the island is Fort Siloso, which dates back to the 1800s and played an important part during WWII with the Japanese occupation of Singapore.  Aaron wanted to see the fort.  However, when we stepped off the bus it was lunch time and also was beginning to rain.  So we switched plans and went into Underwater World, which was located right at the entrance to the path to the fort.  Seemed a much better idea to stay inside rather than walk around a fort in the rain.

Underwater World is a typical new style aquarium with the acrylic tubes that you walk through.  This one has a nice improvement -- it has a people mover belt inside the acrylic tubes to facilitate constant turnover of the tourists.  The moving belt keeps people from stopping and holding up everyone behind them.  I liked this feature very much.



There was a hologram of a great white shark that appeared to project out from the wall.  However, the programmer or installer did not take into account the height of children's eye level.  The kids could not see this hologram at all.  Nothing showed up.  We adults could see it just fine.  Bill went into a corner and snapped a couple of photos so that the kids could see that there really was a hologram of a shark just above their heads.

Next we visited the Dolphin Lagoon section of the complex.  The seating area was mostly covered by a roof to protect us from the intermittent rain.  This was the first time we had seen pink dolphins.  Of all the thousands of dolphins we have seen while sailing half-way round the world, we have never seen a pink dolphin in the wild.  According to the information posted, pink dolphins are coastal creatures and are found all around the Pacific, Indian Ocean and eastern Atlantic.  Pink dolphins are not native to North, Central or South America.  They were the same shade of pink as baby pigs.

We watched a short performance by a couple of sea lions.  They were cute and the kids enjoyed watching them.

Saturday evening Bill and I met fellow Amel owners at their home for a delicious chili dinner.  Mike and Peta recently purchased an Amel Super Maramu 2000, a little newer than ours and located on the southern coast of France in the Med.  Peta's British version of chili was very different from traditional Texas chili, but was a welcome treat to these 2 Texans.  We are hoping to meet up with Mike and Peta somewhere in the Med either summer 2011 or 2012.

Sunday we hoped to try again to visit Fort Siloso but were rained out.  Instead we went to Vivo City food court for lunch and did a bit of shopping in the Giant supermarket.  The afternoon turned bright and sunny, and Bill decided to service our winches.   We wanted this routine service maintenance performed before setting off across the Indian Ocean in a few months.  He managed to finish 3 of the cockpit winches before sunset and will work on the others over the next few days.