Here are the pics from the big move. The boat is now moored near the Thai-Laos Friendship bridge. The boat building school is helping with repairs and preparations. The steering mechanism is going to be completely redone. And they're going to add a gear box. The teacher said he would also have his students paint the boat too. :-)
Cleaning up the construction site. Once the boat was moved our volunteers cleaned-up the site where the boat was built.
Thanks to Don, Julia, Michelle, James, and Ming. :-)
Great ideas! However, a new engine would be very expensive, so I believe your idea of having the boat parked near the river walk is a better solution. It would be there as a constant reminder to be green conscious every day. The plastic bottle boat was built for a reason and it will reach more people docked near the river walk.
I also like the idea of Isara buying a small fishing boat and going along the Mekong River (locally) with a recorder message about keeping the river clean. This, along with the plastic boat docked near the river wall, will get a lot of attention and wasn't this the main focus and mission of the Mekong River clean up campaign?
Great job to our volunteers for thinking this process through to, just maybe, a better and more lasting solution.
Here's the latest pictures of the boat.
We'll work on the boat some more next week. If all goes well, she'll be towed to her new home, closer to the middle of town, sometime in mid-May. Then she'll be seen by thousands of people every day.
A few days ago the city began construction behind our condo building so we no longer had access to the boat. Yesterday we moved the boat closer to town and will begin making the final adjustments to it. Plans are to launch the boat down the river sometime in late June or early July.
Last week, some Americans and Thais living in Bangkok visited Nong Khai and came to see the boat. It was the first time we had 6 people on the boat.
Here's a shot of the boat at it's old location, one last time.
Here is the boat at it's current resting place, next to the Nagarina (Mut Mee's dinner boat cruise). Thank you to Julian for letting us park the boat here while we make more repairs.
We'll get back to work on the boat as soon as it stops RAINING!
It's proving to be VERY difficult to paint a boat when it rains EVERY day! We almost went a whole day without any rain today but then, at around 3pm, it rained hard for about 5 minutes. Afterwards I tried to dry the boat as much as possible so that the paint wouldn't be ruined. We'll know tomorrow if it will require another coat of paint. But, for now, here's a look at the new paint job! :-)
Oh! And when it is not raining, it is hotter than the surface of the Sun outside. We can only work for about 30 minutes on the boat before heat exhaustion takes over. The cabin feels like a sauna during the day so we're adding some vents. I just grabbed some PVC corner pieces and they seem to do the trick. We'll also add a small computer case fan to each vent so that we can bring in some extra air when needed.
Here is a sign we made (in English and Thai) that will be placed around the boat for visitors to read. The boat gets a lot of attention at it's new location and we're constantly having to answer questions from on-lookers. This sign should help answer some of their questions.
Still trying to work out the engine situation. Will know more next week. 
