by Judy Handley | Jan 3, 2010 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 69, Year 5: Meeting Sunflower
Date: Sunday, January 3, 2010
Weather: Mostly Overcast; NE Winds 10-15
Location: Nai Harn Bay, Phuket Island, Thailand
What a treat we had today. We met Al and Beth Liggett of Sunflower. They are from the United States and have been sailing since 1967. We first heard of them last year when I was trying to figure out what to do to get Windbird ready to be left for six months in Malaysia. Someone told me to go to SetSail.com and there I would find these most helpful journals written by Beth that would give me step by step directions. This morning on the net I asked if anyone knew of a place to copy large scale charts in Phuket. No one answered, but shortly Al and Beth came over with a map to show us just where to go. Mark then went over to help Al remove some heavy batteries from Sunflower and then Beth invited us over for Happy Hour. What a fascinating life they have led. After circumnavigating the world the first time and returning to California with only $50, they went back to work as a land surveyor and a teacher. And then Al found a job in Guam, so they moved there and had their current boat built in Taiwan. They have been in this area for the past eleven years, returning home most years to visit. In 2008 they bought a beautiful home in Ripley, Ohio, overlooking the Ohio River, and they will now spend six months there and six months here. We had a delightful time sharing stories and learning more about the Chagos from Al and Beth. They have been there three times and we got some great pointers on what we need to take with us to live there happily for two months.
We spent part of our day focusing on refrigeration. We know the freezer is running way too much and zapping our batteries. We keep 134 A refrigerant to recharge the freezer, but we think the tank is empty. So Mark had to devise a new connection hose for a small canister of gas in order to properly charge the freezer. Before doing this, we defrosted the freezer, then charged it, and we are hoping we might have solved that problem. It will take a couple of days to see if the fix has worked. If not, we will have to call in Siam Refrigeration to take a look but that will cost big bucks and probably mean that we have to move Windbird to a marina, which will cost even more money. So I’m hoping we have the problem solved.
Tomorrow we are renting a car with Ed and Lynne of Constance. We’re hoping to do the very last grocery shopping, except for fresh veggies and eggs that we will buy just before we leave. And we also plan to make multiple runs to a service station to buy diesel and regular gas for our dinghy. It will be a full day but at day’s end we should be pretty well set to leave here when the weather is right.
We heard Wild Card and Shirena on the net this morning and they are both making good progress with favorable winds. Wild Card was doing 8 knots over ground at 8 am this morning. Not bad for a not so big boat. Shirena didn’t give a speed, but it sounded like they were sailing along nicely. There were more boats checking in this morning that are headed west to the Maldives. Since we are literally almost out of money as a result of trying to provision for ten months, it is time for us to set sail as well!
Great Appetizer Recipe from Sunflower:
Ingredients include feta cheese, cherry tomatoes, and baby basil leaves. This last ingredient requires that you keep a small flower pot of basil growing in your cockpit or on your kitchen window sill.
Cut small cherry tomatoes in half.
Cut feta into small squares.
Pick small leaves of basil.
Use a toothpick to skewer a tiny basil leaf, then a square of feta, and a half of a cherry tomato. The tomato provides the base so each little skewer stands upright. Sprinkle with olive oil and vinegar of choice. The small basil leaves give each bite a fantastic flavor.
by Judy Handley | Jan 2, 2010 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 68, Year 5: The Exodus West Has Begun
Date: Saturday, January 2, 2010
Weather: Mostly Overcast; NE Winds 10-15
Latitude: 07 degrees 46.468 minutes N
Longitude: 098 degrees 18.074 minutes E
Location: Nai Harn Bay, Phuket Island, Thailand
The exodus of boats heading west has started and we felt it most personally today as Robert and Tina of Shirena set sail for the Red Sea. At the last minute we found a memory stick that belonged to them and Mark had to go chasing them through the anchorage to give it to them before they headed out to sea. Robert and Tina plan on stopping in the northern Maldives before heading to Salala in Oman. Fatty and Carolyn Goodlander on Wild Card set sail yesterday, on a Friday no less (sailors have a thing about never starting a passage on a Friday), but it was the first day of the new year, so maybe that makes it okay. They are also headed for the northern Maldives before turning north to Salala. Judy and Dave on Freebird left this morning headed to the Andaman Islands, then to Cochin, India, before heading for Salala. As we listen to the Indian Ocean net each morning, we track who is going where. Right now, there is one boat headed to the Red Sea from Malaysia, two boats headed to the Chagos, and now the three that left yesterday and today. I’m sure each day there will be more and more, and sometime in the next two weeks, we will join that exodus.
We ended our evening yesterday by talking to Mark’s sister Mary Ellen and all of her family who are in Georgia for a family vacation; and then talking to my sister Patsy and her husband Joe. Mark’s nieces and one nephew decided that we needed to see our second blue moon in twenty-four hours, so we had a semi-porno Skype call with them! And then early this morning we talked to Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah, and then to my brother Dickie and his wife Conda. We used up all four internet hours we had purchased in Patong so now we can make no more Skype calls until we get to Ao Po. We can get online using our 3G modem, but since there is only 2G in Thailand, it doesn’t support Skype video calls. There won’t be many calls in the next year, so we are trying to pack them in now.
We moved the boat from Patong back to Nai Harn and had a lovely dinner ashore as a treat from Donna and Gerry on Scot Free II. I cleaned the waterline today which was starting to look a little green with an algae growth and Mark continued working on ‘technical difficulties.’ We’ll hang out here tomorrow and try to earnestly list everything we need to do before leaving Thailand. And then on Monday, the race to provision will begin anew.
by Judy Handley | Jan 1, 2010 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 67, Year 5: Happy New Year!
Date: Friday, January 1, 2010
Weather: Overcast; NE Winds 10-15
Location: Patong Beach, Phuket Island, Thailand
What a fabulous New Year’s Eve we had. By 11:30 pm our friends from Shirena and Scot Free were here and there were literally hundreds of lanterns lighting the sky. These were just spectacular. And then the final burst of fireworks started. The most dramatic was what looked just like a waterfall of glistening silver. That is one I’ve never seen before, but our Aussie friends tell us they do that from the Sydney bridge, so new to us but not to all. The thing that is so remarkable here is that we had fireworks arcing around us for about 280 degrees. It was hard to take it all in, but what a treat.
Today we continued working on our electrical issues and we have decided that we are going to have to take Windbird into a marina so that we can have the refrigeration checked. The freezer runs non-stop and is zapping all of our power. So we will leave here tomorrow and go back to Nai Harn for a couple of days to enjoy the clear water. Then we will head up to Ao Po Grande Marina where we spent time last January. We’ll do most of our final provisioning there and then return to Nai Harn or here to wait for our weather window for heading to India. We should be leaving here by mid-month.
I think this is going to be one of the more challenging years we have ever faced on many fronts. It is going to be difficult to spend so many months just waiting for the right weather to make passages from one part of the Indian Ocean to another. And it is going to be super difficult to be away from family for so long. We are prepared for some rough passages. But on the other hand, getting to spend two months in the Chagos is a cruiser’s dream. We are told it is as close to paradise as we’ll find on this earth. So I think 2010 is going to be a most interesting year for us. We hope that whatever your hopes and dreams are for this year come to fruition for you. And above all else, we wish each and every one of you good health and happiness. World peace would also be a wish, but that’s not looking so good right now. But we can keep hoping that someday we might have a world at peace.
by Judy Handley | Dec 31, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 66, Year 5: Once in a Blue Moon
Date: Thursday, December 31, 2009
Weather: Most Sunny; NE Winds 10-15
Latitude: N 07 degrees 53.446 minutes
Longitude: E 098 degrees 17.025 minutes
Location: Patong Beach, Phuket Island, Thailand
This New Year’s Eve is a special one as it hosts the second full moon in month of December. The first was on December 2. The second full moon in a month has become known as a blue moon after a writer for Sky & Telescope magazine in 1946 misinterpreted the Maine Farmer’s Almanac and labeled a blue moon as the second full moon in a month. They only happen on New Year’s Eve every 19 years. The last time was in 1990; the next one won’t come again until 2028. So enjoy this one and know that it is even more special in that it is a blue moon ending a decade and there will be a lunar eclipse. Unfortunately, we all need to be in India to see the full effect, but I will enjoy whatever we get to see.
So it is about 9 pm on New Year’s Eve here in Thailand. We watched the almost full moon rise as the sun set (full moon for us is sometime tomorrow morning) and then the beautiful parade of lanterns started sailing across the sky, first above the moon and now sailing under the moon. These Thai lanterns are just spectacular as they float through the sky looking like stars, but they are just a forerunner of the fireworks to come. Some small displays have already started and as we understand it, the show continues until 2 in the morning. Not sure will be up for that but we’ll enjoy what we see in the meantime.
We motor sailed the ten miles from Nai Harn to here this morning with about fifteen other boats. The anchorage here is huge, so there is no problem accommodating the many boats here. But Patong Beach is a little like a small glitzy Miami Beach with a little sleeze from the worst of Bourbon Street in New Orleans thrown in. It is fun, but it is not relaxing. We went into town when we first arrived and walked to the huge, modern mall that is here. That mall includes a Carrefour super market which was super crowded today. Carrefour is French and the last one we shopped in was in Papeete in Tahiti. We found some of the nicest meat we have seen in a long time with the array of French Thai beef and pork. We had the pork loin chops tonight and they were wonderful. So we might be going back to purchase more. But we won’t stay here for long. The anchorage is full of crazy tourists speeding through on their ski doos which causes a constant rock and roll. There is a wonderful floating jetty, however, that makes it easy to get supplies on to the dinghy and that has its draw.
But with all the lanterns and fireworks, the brightest spot in our evening was a video Skype call with Justin, Jo, and Ziggy. It was early afternoon there and Ziggy was finally awake. He amazed us he fingered the travel guitar sitting in front of him. I thought he was playing a keyboard until Justin pointed out that it was a guitar. He has obviously watched his mom and dad and now has developed his own techniques. And he is also starting to walk and climb. What a little character he is.
The lights of the lanterns floating serenely above us and the display of fireworks is increasing. And now the music has started in earnest. So I’d better send this log and enjoy the show. Our friends from Shirena, Scot Free II, and Rendezvous Cay went to the see the Simon Show tonight (the lady boy show) that we saw on my birthday last March. They should be returning in a while and will hopefully stop by for a New Year’s champagne toast. Robert and Tina leave on Saturday for their journey to the Red Sea, so we want to send them off in style.
by Judy Handley | Dec 30, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 65, Year 5: Still in Nai Harn Bay
Date: Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Weather: Most Sunny; NE Winds 10-15
Location: Nai Harn Bay, Phuket Island, Thailand
We are still sitting here in Nai Harn Bay. Before Christmas there were almost a hundred boats here, but the number has diminished somewhat. Lots of boats have left, but today many came in. Neil and Ley on Crystal Blues made it in today and Barbara and Cory on Increscent Moon (a Tayana sister ship) came in last night. We delayed leaving today as Mark is really not feeling great and we wanted to connect with Barbara and Cory. They are going to leave with us in the morning and sail to Patong Beach for the big New Year’s Eve celebration there. After that we really aren’t sure what we will do. We know we just have to choose an anchorage that has good beach access so we can do our last bit of provisioning. That might mean returning to Ao Po Marina where we spent time last year if Patong doesn’t work out as a good provisioning anchorage. The anchorage we are in is lovely, but there are times when the rollers are heading into the beach which makes getting your dinghy off quite interesting. And we learned from Cory and Barbara that the dinghy dock at Ao Chalong, poor as it was, was removed yesterday. That makes the only access there by climbing a ladder and that just doesn’t work for provisioning.
Mark spent the morning removing the backup alternator and installing the big one which was just repaired. It is rated at 200 Amps and will make our charging time shorter.
I had a wonderful, long telephone call with our daughter Heather today. And we are hoping that we are finally going to get to connect with Justin, Jo, and Ziggy tonight. We will be making as many contacts as possible in the next week, as we could be leaving any time after that when the weather is right. The trip to Cochin, India, will be the second longest passage we have ever had. The longest was from the Galapagos to the Marqueses at 3,000 miles. The passage to Cochin is just a little more than half of that but the winds could be either non-existent or more gusty than one would like. I’m truly hoping for something in the middle. Maybe we will be lucky.
by Judy Handley | Dec 29, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 64, Year 5: Cold, but not the Temperature
Date: Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Weather: Most Sunny; NE Winds 10
Location: Nai Harn Bay, Phuket Island, Thailand
Mark woke up this morning with a killer cold. He was coughing in the rental car yesterday, but we had hoped it was the air conditioning. But not so. So we had to slow down a bit today and hopefully he will get to sleep early tonight and will wake up tomorrow feeling much better. That’s optimistic, but one can always hope.
Our little power struggles are continuing, but we did get our alternator back this afternoon and if Mark feels up to it, he will install it in the morning. His contribution to the power issue today was to remove all of the leads from the shunt, clean the connections, and then reattach the leads. The shunt is basically a metal device that is wired to the batteries and allows us to read the amperage that the batteries are consuming or putting out at any one time. We had no further wild readings on our battery monitor for the remainder of the day, but we will have to see what tomorrow morning brings. We just have to keep checking on this issue one little step at a time.
I borrowed Scot Free II’s canner once again and this time I actually got the spaghetti sauce made and am waiting for the canning process to be done as I write this log. If the whole process works, it will be great to have the canned spaghetti sauce with ground beef when we are doing passages. This helps reduce the amount of meat I need to keep in the freezer and the canned sauce is like an instant meal. I can heat it up in the microwave if things are really rough, so I’m so glad I’m finally getting this done.
We had Ed and Lynne of Constance over this evening for Happy Hour. They arrived here yesterday, but we got home so late last night that we didn’t get to connect. They are the only couple we know of at this point headed our way this year but we know there will be others. But until we meet those people, Constance and Windbird have a lot in common and it is great fun to get together and discuss our plans. They are staying here for New Year’s Eve and we might decide to stay here as well, especially if Mark is not feeling better. We will just have to see what tomorrow morning brings.
