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.
