Doha, Qatar

Continual urban renewal

Our flight to Philly from Kuala Lumpur had a 7 hour layover in Doha so we decided to make it a 3 day layover instead and explore a new place.

Hotter than Malaysia but no humidity

Qatar Central Bank, new pavers of course

We have never been to any Persian Gulf country so we thought why not.  We did however have to get a few extra Covid tests. 

The country is built with oil money.  It was nothing more than a sand dune until the early 1970's.  Everything is new since.  It is the 2nd safest city in the world.

The  FIFA World Cup is being hosted in Doha in November 2022.  They have gone all out sprucing up the city.  It looks like every street is being torn up and repaved with granite paver stones.

The giant thumb.  A good reference point

You can get lost easily

We did alot of walking around avoiding the maze of detours, cars, and piles of pavers.

The neatest place we went was the Souq Waqif marketplace.  It's a couple hundred year old Bedouin market that burned down in 2003.   It was rebuilt from 2006-2008 and is really quite impressive.

It is about 20 acres and easy to get lost inside all the alleys, nooks, and passageways.  You can get just about anything there from rabbits to falcons or spices to gold.

It seemed like 90 percent of the population was Indian.  Most had emigrated for the work and education.  The restaurants were good and we ate Indian food every meal except for one Lebanese dinner.  

It was a fun 3 days but we see no reason to do it again.  There are plenty of other layover cities to explore.

Neat primitive architecture

The Rest of the Work

The poor little car wasn't meant to haul this much

Unfortunately I didn't take many photos alot the work we did.  

We started out re-bedding the stainless bits that were removed for the spray job.  Wind generator masts, support bracing, life raft canister frames, life lines, bilge pump housings, vent covers, blocks, and clutches all had to be caulked and screwed securely. 

We installed the swim platform (previous post) and hull rubrails.  

The hulls had been sanded just after spraying the gelcoat with 120 grit.  We had to now finish the sanding bot outboard hulls with 400 then 800 grit before installing the rubrails.

We had a machine shop completely redo the swim platform ladders.

Weighing in at the scrap recycler

We got rid of the dead house batteries.  660 pounds of lead went to recycler in Sitiawan.  I got $200 US in exchange.  The original cost was $3800 and they never were any good from day one.  

We ordered 1000Ah of Lithium Batteries from China that will be installed when we get back.  They weigh half as much and have double the capacity.

Finally, Tortuguita was wrapped and secure while we take our trip home for the summer.

All wrapped up.  We're finally getting good at this.