by Judy Handley | Jan 15, 2010 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 81, Year 5: Ready for the Indian Ocean Adventure
Date: Friday, January 15, 2010
Weather: Mostly Sunny Day; ENE Winds 15-20
Location: Patong Beach, Phuket Island, Thailand
We had one more exhausting day getting ready for our Indian Ocean adventure (I’ll call it the IOA.). We started with an early morning engine check of all fluids-oil, transmission fluid, antifreeze, and starting battery water. I baked bread, made yogurt, fried salmon cakes, and boiled eggs, while Mark took down the back awning and tied things down on deck. Then we made a quick run to town for more water and beer, and were ready to go to town by 2:30 to see the movie Avatar–fabulous. So we are now as ready as we are going to be for the IOA. Cochin is 1500 miles from here and it will take us about two weeks to get there. We will be traveling with Ed and Lynne on Constance and a multitude of other boats that are already out there and more that are leaving every day. The frontrunners, Shiva, Shirena, and Wild Card have arrived safely in Uligan in the northern Maldives and there are at least twenty more boats on their way. Not sure exactly which boats are going to the Maldives and which ones are headed to Cochin, but we soon shall find out. We loved Avatar and it was the perfect movie to see before starting out on a passage that has the possibility of being a little rough at times. Now that we’ve seen the movie, we’ll just gather our forces and fight back!
Donna and Gerry of Scot Free came sailing in here early this afternoon, so we had one last farewell dinner together, along with Constance. Gerry finally talked to Todd of Salmonberry who now tells him that he left the charts on his motorbike in Patong Beach where both charts and bike were stolen. Todd never did return to his boat in Ao Chalong, so finally Donna and Gerry gave up and left. I’m not sure we have heard the end of that saga, but Donna and Gerry just want to put it behind them. We plan to leave around 8 am in the morning, so it is time to head to bed and get one last restful night’s sleep at anchor. After that, sleep comes in three hour stints until we reach India.
by Judy Handley | Jan 14, 2010 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 80, Year 5: One More Day in Thailand
Date: Thursday, January 14, 2010
Weather: Mostly Sunny Day; ENE Winds 15-20
Location: Patong Beach, Phuket Island, Thailand
Our friends Robert and Tina of Shirena should either have arrived in the northern Maldives late this evening or they are out there sailing around waiting for morning to come into Uligan. They finally got a bit of wind and were sailing along nicely today. I think Fatty and Carolyn on Wild Card will be in tomorrow sometime as well. It will be a great relief to know that they have all made the passage safely. It does appear that the Northeast Monsoon winds seem to be filling in now, so we are hoping for a great passage with enough, but not too much wind.
Tomorrow we will enjoy the partial solar eclipse. If we were further to the north in India, Sri Lanka, or Burma, we would see an annular eclipse where the moon covers the sun but still a halo of light of the sun would shine through. We first learned of the eclipse on the net. Sri Lankan fishermen had told some of the cruisers going through the fishing grounds about this event. Not quite the same as NPR, but word does get around.
We made one more trip to town today to buy more fresh produce and a few cases of beer. Ed and Lynne went with us and we once again had a great time walking and talking. All of us are sick of buying food and right now we think we would be happy to never see a supermarket again. But I’m sure that thought will change after a few weeks when the fresh food supply has dwindled. We will be able to buy some things in India, but there are many things that are not available there, so we hope we have bought enough of the right things to last.
On Monday I wrote about meeting in Ao Chalong with Gerry and Donna of Scot Free II and Kat and Todd of Salmonberry. Gerry brought a fortune in charts for Todd to copy and we celebrated Kat’s birthday and Todd’s first article published in Cruising World. That article was called the Salmonberry Saga, and indeed we have now experienced a different kind of Salmonberry Saga. Gerry’s 28 new charts of the Red Sea plus a myriad of copied charts and a couple of books are gone. Todd has emailed that they were stolen, but he has not called Donna and Gerry and when we try to call his phone there is a message that the phone number is not available right now. Neither he nor Kat are on their boat in Ao Chalong, so it looks like Gerry and Donna have lost a small fortune in charts. This is so unusual in the cruising community. You don’t even think of not trusting fellow cruisers, so we will hope that there is some explanation for all of this. Donna and Gerry were so bummed that they went out and had Margaritas. That is only remarkable because Donna doesn’t drink! So you know she had to be very upset by the whole affair.
If the weather continues to look good, tomorrow will be our last day in Thailand. It will be hard to say goodbye to this beautiful land, but it will be exciting to start new explorations of new lands. India here we come.
by Judy Handley | Jan 13, 2010 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 79, Year 5: Two More Days
Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Weather: Rain Overnight; Mostly Sunny Day; ESE Wind 10-20
Latitude: 07 degrees 53.462 minutes N
Longitude: 098 degrees 17.080 minutes E
Location: Patong Beach, Phuket Island, Thailand
Here we are back in Patong Beach. We got here just after noon and spent our afternoon walking to the shopping center, the Carrefour supermarket, and the local wet market. Ed and Lynne of Constance went in with us. We bought 90 eggs and lots of fresh veggies at the wet market, and then went back to Carrefour to take advantage of some of their sales that made the purchases even cheaper. They had carrots on special and four pounds cost only 33 Baht. That is the equivalent of $1 US. So carrots were the buy of the day. But the eggs were a pretty good deal as well, maybe even better. We paid 315 Baht for 90 eggs in plastic instead of cardboard crates. The plastic crates cost a little more, but not much. We paid about $10 US for the whole lot, so that was not bad deal either. We then learned that we can go to the cinema here and see the movie Avitar in English any afternoon at 3:30. The last movie Mark and I have seen was in December of 2008, so we might do that tomorrow or on Friday as a treat. And speaking of treats, Ed, Mark, and I indulged in a Dairy Queen chocolate-dipped cone today. Sometimes you just have to enjoy the ‘finer’ foods in life.
We invited Ed and Lynne over for sundowners and had a great time learning more about each other’s lives. We are both anxious to leave, but when we hear the reports from those out there that have absolutely no wind, we think waiting a few extra days was not a bad decision. Even Wild Card has had to turn on the engine and they don’t carry much fuel. As of this morning Shirena had 190 miles to go to Uligan in the northern Maldives and only 150 miles worth of fuel, so they are going to have to get creative. According to our reports, we think the wind will pick up on Friday or Saturday, so eventually they will all be blown into the Maldives and hopefully we will have a good start to the first leg of our Indian Ocean crossing. It is Wednesday night here, so we have Thursday and Friday to shop and then we will leave early on Saturday morning if the weather reports stay the same. We’re getting anxious.
by Judy Handley | Jan 12, 2010 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 78, Year 5: The Countdown Has Begun
Date: Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Weather: Mostly Sunny; NE then NW Winds
Location: Nai Harn Bay, Phuket Island, Thailand
Our morning started with a little clean-up. Last night, I was deep into reading a new book when Mark went to bed. I said I would close the forward hatch when I came to bed, but then I fell asleep and didn’t hear the pouring rain. Yes, it was pouring right into our v-berth. So this morning we had to take everything out to make sure it dried properly. This required washing the pads that we keep on top of the v-berth cushions. But things were not as bad as we had thought last night. By the end of the afternoon today, we had everything washed, dried, and put back into place.
And we had much better timing today. We went to Jungle Beach and pulled up our dinghy. Then we walked over the hill, up to the ridge and then down, down, down to Nai Harn Beach, and got there just in time to catch a public bus. No waiting this time and it was a young driver who must not believe in the going slow method of the older drivers. So we flew to Ao Chalong, had time to spare so we had a cool drink at our favorite little spot in Ao Chalong, The Twin Coconuts, bought glue for dinghy repairs, and arrived at Nina’s Car Rental at exactly 11 am. And unbelievably, the delivery of the little tank of gas was happening just as we arrived. We thanked everyone profusely for making this happen for us and then headed back to the main street to catch a bus back to Nai Harn. As we walked down the street waiting for the bus, we ran into Donna and Gerry of Scot Free II and said our farewells once again. The bus came, again with a young driver, and we sped off. It must have been my complaining in last night’s log as today there were no delays and fast deliveries.
Lynne and Ed of Constance came over in the late afternoon and we discussed our plans for leaving. Starting with tomorrow our four day countdown begins. Day One, tomorrow, we will pull up anchor and go to Patong Beach. We will get there by noon and should have time to make one trip into town to buy eggs. The next day, Thursday for us and Day Two, we will do the serious fresh fruit and veggie provisioning. That brings us to Friday, Day Three, when we will do our last beer and diesel fuel run. And then on Day Four, Saturday, we will sail away. At least, that is the most current plan.
This evening we went over to Safina’s for sundowners and another couple from France joined us. Jean-Pierre and Collette are French Canadian, so they were able to translate so that all of us could understand the conversations bouncing back and forth between French and English. Leaving Safina tonight we found ourselves saying our farewells to yet another couple that we will miss very much. Parting is so difficult.
Shirena and Wild Card are getting mighty close to the Maldives. There is still less than 5 knots of wind out there so this morning Shirena was motoring and Wild Card was still sailing along at 2.8 knots and were happy with their progress. The positive current really helps. Shirena got a little too close to Sri Lanka trying to take advantage of the more positive current to the north but ended up in the middle of the Sri Lankan fishing fleet in the middle of the night. With a little help from a friendly fisherman, they were able to work their way out of the maze, having a narrow miss with a huge freighter, and then on out to safety.
One last note-a thank you to our friend Rich in Ohio. Rich reads our logs and constantly sends us helpful information. Today he sent a scanned copy of Todd’s Cruising World article that I mentioned in yesterday’s log. I forwarded that to Todd who I know will appreciate it and we just want to thank Rich for always being there with the most up-to-date information for us. The internet is such a treasure as a conduit of information for all of us. But it takes special friends to send the information. So thank you, Rich.
by Judy Handley | Jan 11, 2010 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 77, Year 5: Nothing’s Easy
Date: Monday, January 11, 2010
Weather: Mostly Sunny; NE then NW Winds
Location: Nai Harn Bay, Phuket Island, Thailand
I can hear the words, “I beg your pardon. I never promised you a rose garden.” Of course, even a rose garden has thorns, and we have more than a few thorny issues lately. Everything seems harder than in the previous years of Windbird’s voyage. One issue is the language barrier here in southern Thailand. Tourism is the number one business, but there is no common language. Very few Thai’s here speak English and everyone else is speaking every language in the world imaginable. So trying to find anything is very difficult. The other big issue is that stores are so spread out and almost impossible to get to without renting a car and cars are expensive, so we’ve been trying to do things using public transportation. And that takes forever. Our friends Jean-Pierre and Collette of Safina arrived here in Nai Harn today. They have just sailed up from Malaysia for the first time, so they had lots of questions about how to do this and that. By the time we were finished answering their questions, all they could say is that Thailand doesn’t seem like an easy place to be. We love it here, but it is much easier to be here when you don’t have a specific mission. Or if you do, you hire someone who can speak English to get it done for you. Our departure from here is being delayed by a couple of days because we can’t locate some of the things we must have before leaving. So hang on, we’ll get out of here one of these days.
On the brighter side, we did have a somewhat better Skype video connection with Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah early this morning. It wasn’t perfect as we kept losing our signal and the call would disconnect. We would click a few buttons and reconnect, but we were on long enough to see Jonah taking a nap on Jed’s lap and then wake up to look curiously at us on the computer monitor. Sam did some more fancy tricks with his fire truck and firemen and then he decided he wanted to play the violin for us. He gave quite a concert, we all clapped and cheered, and he bowed gracefully. We also got to talk to my brother Dickie and his wife Conda, my sister Patsy and her husband Joe, and their daughter Jennifer. They were just sitting down to eat dinner when they saw that we were online (6:15 am for us, 6:15 pm for them), so Jennifer made a quick call so we could all connect. So our day started off on a positive note.
But then we went to shore to the ‘safe’ beach where the surf doesn’t roll in quite so violently but doing that means we had to walk over the hill to get to the main beach and the public bus. We got there but had to wait more than 30 minutes for the bus and then ride for another 40 minutes to get to Ao Chalong. We went directly to the bank to check to see if our money transfer for our BIOT permit had gone through and all they could tell us was that they had heard nothing contrary. It would be at least two more days before they will get final confirmation. Another delay. We then went to the harbor to check out and arrived just in time for their lunch break. The door says they are open from 9 to 3, but doesn’t mention that they also close for an hour for lunch. So we went to lunch and called Gerry and Donna of Scot Free II who were just returning to Ao Chalong. We were hoping to meet up with them and return the charts they loaned us. We also called Kat and Todd, the young couple we had met in the Villa Market a few days ago who were desperate for Sri Lanka and Red Sea charts. We connected them with Scot Free II who has charts so Kat came to where we were having lunch to get our Sri Lanka charts and waited for Donna and Gerry who were bringing the Red Sea charts. She and Todd will get them copied and then return them. But during all of this we found out that it was Kat’s birthday and that Todd was out searching for a birthday present and a current copy of Cruising World. His first article is in the recent addition. I think the title is the ‘Saga of Salmonberry.’ He didn’t find a Cruising World, but if any of you read it, let us know what you think. Kat and Todd sail without an engine and the article is about that. Yikes! The Red Sea could be a very long trip! But they are young and bright-eyed and I’m sure they will make it just fine.
We searched Ao Chalong for potting soil for my newly acquired seeds and for 134A gas for recharging our refrigeration system. We found pots for the soil and every kind of chemical fertilizer in the world that we didn’t want, but no soil. We couldn’t get anyone to understand what the gas was that we were looking for. Mark kept thinking auto repair shops might be able to help us since they use 134A to recharge car air conditioners, and that made me think that the place in Ao Chalong where we had rented a car earlier might be able to help us. The man is French but speaks good English and his wife is Thai and speaks good English as well. And sure enough, they called the person who comes to recharge the air conditioners in their rental cars and he said he could deliver a 4 kilo tank tomorrow at 11 am. That means another trip to Ao Chalong and another delay in leaving Nai Harn, but if we get the 134A it will be worth it.
Our searching for today was over and we were ready to get back to Nai Harn to meet up with Jean-Pierre and Collette, but we must have missed the bus by just a couple of minutes as it was another hour before the next one came. We got back to Windbird about 5:15 pm and then started another search. We were determined to try and call BIOT to see if they could confirm whether or not they had received our payment. We checked emails and had nothing from them in response to an email sent in the morning. We used the last of our wi-fi time that would support Skype to call someone in a BIOT office somewhere who just told us she could tell us nothing. We went to dinner and came back and tried again using our cell phone with our CAT card that has given us so much time talking to people back in the US. We weren’t sure it would work in calling the UK, but it did and all we got were messages that people were on vacation until January 4. We finally gave up and then Mark checked email. UNBELIEVABLE. The BIOT permit was there. The email actually said that BIOT permits can take weeks to process and people should plan accordingly. But then there was another email with our BIOT permit attached!!!!! This is definitely the biggest success of today. We can now leave Thailand knowing that our money is not floating out there somewhere never to be found. So we have a parking permit in the Chagos for two months.
It has been a day of ups and downs, but in the end we think we have our 134A refrigerant, we have our BIOT permit, we had a great reunion with our friends on Safina, and we will now probably be leaving Thailand on Saturday instead of Thursday. We could leave on Friday, but I’m too superstitious for that. Sailors are warned never to leave on passage on Friday and since this upcoming passage could be a tricky one, I want to have only good luck on our side.
Our friends Robert and Tina on Shirena were almost next to Fatty and Carolyn on Wild Card this morning when they checked into the net. Robert wrote an email that we received this evening outlining their last 24 hours. They went right through the Sri Lankan fishing fleet last night, passing over two nets without getting caught and then finally were stopped by a fishing boat that helped redirect them. The fishermen wanted cigarettes but when Robert told them they had none, they just laughed and sent them on their way. Then they had a too close encounter with a cargo ship due to an AIS misreading, but avoided a collision and made it through the night unscathed.
by Judy Handley | Jan 10, 2010 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 76, Year 5: Video Skype Calls with Grandkids
Date: Sunday, January 10, 2010
Weather: Mostly Sunny; NE Winds
Location: Nai Harn Bay, Phuket Island, Thailand
Our day of rest was not quite a day of rest, but for the most part it was relaxing. We did lots of little jobs around the boat. I heated up the inside of Windbird again by baking MORE granola and Mark used the snuba gear to go down and clean the prop and the bottom of the boat. The bottom had only a little fuzz on it, but the prop had a few barnacles. So now that job is done. We started getting the inside of the boat ready for passage, but we are not there yet. We also went to shore to buy a few more hours of internet time. We can be on the internet using our telephone modem, but that is not good enough to support Skype video. So when we want to do make Skype video calls, we have to buy time for a local wi-fi provider and use our high-gain wi-fi antenna to connect.
We had a great early evening (for us) call with Ziggy and Jo in England. They were getting even more snow today, more snow than Jo’s parents have seen since 1963. Ziggy entertained us with his curiosity and his voracious eating. Either Jo’s brother or dad brought a plate of bread to try and keep Ziggy from trying to eat the computer monitor and that did the trick. Ziggy ate and ate and ate, still watching the monitor all the while. He is crawling and pulling up now and is in constant motion. I think Jo will have her hands full when she and Ziggy fly home to New Mexico later this week! Then later in the evening (Sunday morning on Cape Cod) we tried to talk to Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah. Unfortunately, we were having our evening lightening storm that then developed into rain, and the weather seemed to be interfering with the wi-fi connection. We were off and on, off and on. We did get to see Jonah looking curiously at the computer monitor and yelping something to us and Sam gave us a demonstration of his newest, favorite fire engine. Brian, Melissa, and Molly next door gave it to him and he can push buttons so it talks to him. Very cool. We were disappointed that the connection was not better, but we will get up early and try to connect with them at 6:30 on their Sunday evening. Hopefully the connection will be better then.
Our friends Robert and Tina on Shirena are motoring today. They are just south of Sri Lanka. They were experiencing less than 5 knots of wind from the east. Fatty and Carolyn Goodlander on Wildcard reported that they have made 1000 miles thus far using very little fuel. They were moving along this morning at 2.7 knots, most of that from positive current, but they were very happy that they had forward movement without using the motor. I must say that Fatty has the best radio signal out there. I wish I had asked him his secret. When he was aboard Windbird for Thanksgiving he told a story from his first circumnavigation when he and Carolyn came into Cochin, India with a radio that had stopped working. When he arrived he made some inquiries and found that there was a man who could probably fix his radio. The gentleman was told that the honor of India was at stake, so he came and took the radio, carrying it away on his head. When Carolyn asked Fatty who the man was and where he was going with their radio, Fatty had no answers. But the next day, the gentleman returned with a radio that was working great. If this is still that same radio, I might have to find this gentleman when we reach Cochin and see if we can match Fatty’s radio strength.
