by Judy Handley | Dec 31, 2008 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Thailand |
Day 70, Year 4: Fifteen Magical Days in Thailand
Date: Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Weather: Mix of Sun and Clouds
Location: Ao Po Grand Marina, Phuket Island, Thailand
Kevin and Claire flew to Bangkok this morning and will be starting the trip home from Bangkok to Paris to Washington, DC at 11:30 tonight. They will be celebrating New Year’s in the air more than once as they move through the time zones. So Happy New Year to Kevin and Claire, to our families, and to everyone reading this log. The last fifteen days leading up to the New Year have been truly magical for us. Sailing in the Andaman Sea in Thailand is just totally fantastic and doing it with friends
made it even more fantastic. When Justin and Jo joined us in Bali and sailed with us to Borneo, it felt much the same. I think we just love sailing with people we love. But now we have a few days alone and it is time to settle down, do a little boat maintenance, and get ready for the arrival of Heather, Jed, and Sam. We can’t wait for that!
Once we dropped Kevin and Claire off at the airport, we took advantage of the rental car and went to each of the marinas on Phuket Island. We will stay here at Ao Po Grand for another day and half and then go back out to anchor. After our tour today, we decided that we will return here. Yacht Haven on the north side of the island is so far away from things and has nothing special to offer. The Boat Lagoon south of Ao Po is in a modern hotel/condo complex. There are lots of boat services and
a couple of hotels that people at the marina can use, but they have no openings until February or March. And even if they did, I don’t think I would choose that location over this one unless I needed to have the boat services. The Royal Phuket Yacht Club is just south of the Boat Lagoon and it is another modern hotel/shopping complex that has not been fully completed. It costs twice as much as the other marinas, has no pool, and nothing special to offer as far as we could see. So unfinished as it is, Ao Po Grand Marina will be our home base while we are in Thailand. The view of the islands in the upper Phang Nga Bay is beautiful, the nearby Chandara Resort offers a beautiful place to swim and eat, there is a tiny little Muslim restaurant nearby that serves great, and cheap, lunches, and rental cars are easy to come by. This location is less than 30 minutes from the airport, so this seems like the place to be. We will be here tomorrow (New Year’s Day) and leave mid-day the following day to go hang out at one of the nearby islands for a few days while we do our boat maintenance. We will then return a couple of days before Heather, Jed, and Sam arrive. Mark is loving the really great Wi-Fi internet here on the boat, so I am going to have a hard time pulling him away. I know I won’t have a hard time getting him to return here.
Just before I started writing the log tonight, we checked Heather and Jed’s Picassa website and got to see pictures of Sam on Christmas Day. What a kid! We got to see him opening his IKEA tunnel and crawling through it, opening his Lego fire station and putting that together, and riding his tricycle that was his present from us. And then we called H, J, & S on Skype and got to watch Sam playing and talking to us. He truly looks at the computer screen and seems to understand who we are and talks to us. Maybe I’m imagining this, but he definitely communicated with the people on the computer screen. Amazing.
After that Skype call, Mark called his brother Steve in Florida. Steve now has a webcam, so they got to see each other as well as talk. At the same time, Mark was chatting with Justin. He and Jo will be at a location tomorrow night where we can talk with them. As soon as I send this log, I hope to talk to my brother and my sister. So life is good.
Attached to this log, I hope to copy fifteen photos representing our last fifteen days of sailing in Thailand. Check back tomorrow for that. The picture you can’t see is Mark and me eating Hershey’s chocolate and drinking Bintang beer that I have been saving since Indonesia. This is our champagne toast to a wonderful sailing year in 2008. So picture this and have a very happy New Year.
by Judy Handley | Dec 30, 2008 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Thailand |
Day 69, Year 4: Whirlwind Tour of Phuket Island
Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Weather: Only Partly Sunny
Latitude: 08 degrees 04.101 minutes N
Longitude: 098 degrees 26.680 minutes E
Location: Ao Po Grand Marina, Phuket Island, Thailand
Okay, so we don’t know how to slow down. Today was Kevin and Claire’s last day with us and it was just as busy as all the rest. Kevin keeps asking when he is going to get a nap, but I guess that just didn’t happen on this vacation. We have seen so much in such a short time, and there wasn’t a lot of down time. So why make today different? We motored the eight miles from Ko Phanak to Ao Po Grand Marina. This is a marina still under construction, but it was the closest and the one we were surest would have space for us. It has great potential and great service, and I will talk more about this in tomorrow’s log, but for now I’ll give a brief overview of today’s Phuket island tour.
As soon as we arrived, I headed up the dock to see Jean and Ken on Renaissance 2000. I knew they had been here since before Christmas and would be able to give me a quick run-down on what’s available. I then went with them to the office and got more information. Our decision was to rent a car and head for Phuket Town, but by the time we got the car it was after 12 noon. Our brand new Yamaha dinghy engine has been leaking a black oil out of the lower unit and our first priority was to get that to an authorized dealer to be checked. So we hauled the engine to the car and off we went. The short story on the engine is that there appears to be nothing wrong. But we’ll just have to keep a close eye on that one. Our next stop was in Old Phuket Town where we parked and walked to a great Indian restaurant. I know we are in Thailand, but the Lonely Planet made this restaurant sound so good that we couldn’t resist. And the curries were fantastic. It was also a really kicky little place, so that was a good choice. Claire is learning to make jewelry and wanted to go to a gem shop, so that was the next stop. By the time we left Phuket Town and headed for the beaches on the western coast it was rush hour. We had a bit of a slow trek over the mountain and then descended to Patong Beach. What a zoo! I guess you can’t really say you have visited Phuket without seeing the beach scene, but now we’ve seen it and that will suffice. The beach is so crowded with chairs and umbrellas and people that you can hardly see the sand. And it is huge beach, so there are huge numbers of people doing all sorts of crazy and wild beach things. So on we went. As you drive north along the west coast, the beaches become much calmer. After driving half-way up the island, we turned back to the east to head home. It was dark by the time we reached the marina, but instead of going directly back to Windbird, we went down a little side road to a lovely resort called Chandara. It is within walking distance from the marina. We went to the poolside bar to have drinks and appetizers. We had eaten lunch too late to be hungry enough for dinner. The setting was perfect for a last evening together with Kevin and Claire. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, the electricity went off about the time we arrived, so we enjoyed our time together by candlelight. When we got back to the marina, we were met by a staff member to make sure we had enough light to get back to Windbird. No sooner had we arrived than the electricity was back on and we are now enjoying the best wireless internet service we have ever had. A definite plus for this marina.
We have the rental car until noon tomorrow, so we will take Kevin and Claire to the airport 9 and then do a little more exploring before returning to Windbird. We might be spending a very quiet New Year’s Eve here before moving on. We hope to find a quiet anchorage where I can do varnishing, but then we might find it easier to just stay here and do that. We’ll make that decision tomorrow.
Life on Windbird is going to be very lonely with Kevin and Claire. They are wonderful sailing partners and we have shared some of Planet Earth’s most beautiful places together in the past fifteen days. Sharing the adventure with friends has been so special. Kevin and Claire, we are really going to miss you.
by Judy Handley | Dec 29, 2008 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Thailand |
Day 68, Year 4: Upper Phang Nga Bay-A James Bond Experience
Date: Monday, December 29, 2008
Weather: Unfortunately–Overcast
Latitude: 08 degrees 11.383 minutes N
Longitude: 098 degrees 29.165 minutes E
Location: Ko Phanak Northwest, Thailand
It was another one of those “interesting” days. Things started out smoothly. Claire and I had tried to snorkel ashore Ko Phak Bia late yesterday afternoon, but found ourselves in shallow water over coral. We searched and searched and found no way to get ashore. But this morning the tide was up and we were able to take the dinghy right up to the shore. Ko Phak Bia is a tiny little island, but it has lots of character. The beach is flanked on both ends with cliffs covered with jungle growth and a most interesting array of small rocks cover the shoreline. There were also lizard tracks, but we didn’t see any lizards. After our explore, we were on our way to the upper Phang Nga Bay. We had planned a lunch stop, but decided to head straight for James Bond Island. This is where “Man with a Golden Gun” was filmed and it has made the island a very popular place for tourists. We weren’t planning to visit the island, but just wanted to sail by to see the beautiful islands in the area. In this part of the bay, there is just one beautiful island after another, but traveling in the waters is tricky as it is very shallow. We kept a careful watch and never really saw anything under five meters, but we were traveling at high tide. After see James Bond Island, we headed back south to our anchorage for our last night out with Kevin and Claire. We chose Ko Phanak as it is right on our way to Phuket.
We arrived mid-afternoon and headed directly by dinghy to the cave entrance close to where we had anchored. We knew we should be able to take the dinghy through the cave to a hong (small bay enclosed on all sides with cliffs with only narrow entrance, in this case, entrance through a cave). Now comes the James Bond adventure. Once in the cave we were in total darkness and our flashlights just don’t do the job. But there were many tourists in kayaks that were being rowed through and each of the kayaks had a good light. So we made our way through the narrow passage with a little help from the tourist boats. As we got deeper into the cave, kayaks were passing us in both directions-quite bizarre to have a traffic jam in a cave. We went as far as we could go and then went into a holding position. The exit from the cave into the hong was too narrow and not high enough for us to get through in the dinghy. Some of the tour guides stopped to tell us to wait 30 minutes and then the water would be low enough to let us go through. The current was strong and it was hard to hold on, so Kevin and Claire jumped in and swam through the narrow opening into the hong. I stayed with Mark as I had no desire to jump into the murky, dark water, but Kevin and Claire returned unscathed and we rode the tide out of the cave. No sooner did we emerge than Mark discovered that his underwater camera was no longer in his pocket. This is the same underwater camera that was brand new when we left the US last May. After using it underwater only three or four times, it got water in it. Justin and Jo took it home with them after their visit and sent it in for repairs. Kevin and Claire just brought it back, so it is feeling like this camera is jinxed. But jinxed or not, Mark was devastated. We continued on exploring the fantastic rock overhangs and other cave and hong entrances around the west and north side of the island. But when we returned to Windbird, Mark decided that he wanted to go back in the cave to look for his camera. The chances of finding it were almost nil, but we gave it our best effort. We stopped by Windbird to get snorkels and fins and then went to the cave. The current was flowing much faster out of the cave than it had been for our first trip through, and Kevin, Claire, and Mark took turns struggling to row us against the current. I’m such a poor rower that I didn’t even try to help. I would have had us going backwards for sure. Twice we had to turn on the dinghy engine which is a “no no” for two reasons. One is that the engine noise is not good for the bat population in the cave, and the second is that the water was shallow and we had no idea what was under the surface. With great effort, we made our way back to the far end of the cave and Mark jumped in the water to see what he could find. Much of the bottom was very muddy so he just had to feel in the mud for anything the shape of a camera. It was a valiant effort, but he came up empty handed.
We all got back to Windbird, had showers, and started to relax, when Claire offered to take Mark back to the cave at lowest tide so he could walk in and look for the camera. Kevin offered to go along, so off they went. Claire stayed on the beach with the dinghy looking for shells and critters and Mark and Kevin walked into the abyss with headlights, flashlights, and even our million candle power light. It looked like a scene out of a James Bond movie. About half an hour later they emerged, soaking
wet, still with no camera. Kevin said he almost lost Mark to quick sand once during the trip. Quite a little adventure!
This is our last night out. Tomorrow we will head to Phuket to one of the marinas on the east side of the island. We hope to get there in time to do a little exploring on the island before Kevin and Claire fly out the next morning. Our travels through the islands of Thailand have been fantastic. I don’t think we could have asked for better weather or more perfect anchorages. If I could wish for one thing, it would be a blue sky, sunny day tomorrow. It was overcast today and we didn’t get to
see the fantastic colors of the upper Phang Nga Bay at their best. But other than that, we had had a perfect adventure.
by Judy Handley | Dec 28, 2008 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Thailand |
Day 67, Year 4: Beautiful Day, Beautiful Problems
Date: Sunday, December 28, 2008
Weather: Beautiful Sunny Day with Afternoon Sprinkles
Latitude: 08 degrees 06.961 minutes N
Longitude: 098 degrees 40.519 minutes E
Location: Koh Pak Bia, Krabi Province, Thailand
We left our beautiful anchorage at Phra Nag North early this morning and headed a whopping seven miles to Koh Hang South. This was another beautiful anchorage where we picked up a mooring ball and headed to shore. We had to share the beauty with many people who had arrived in long tail boats, but sharing is a good thing. We walked the beach and enjoyed the beauty and then Mark and I headed back to Windbird to fix a picnic lunch for all of us to enjoy on the beach. After lunch we got in the dinghy and went around the island to the hong. Hong in Thai refers to a room, and the hongs in the out islands are little lagoons that have a narrow entry way with huge towering walls which make them feel a little like a room. Once inside the lagoon, it widens out and the views are beautiful.
After our explorations, we headed back to Windbird and then the “beautiful” troubles of the day began. I know problems cannot really be beautiful, but when you are in such beautiful territory, you simply don’t want anything to mar the experience, so we’ll just call the problems “beautiful.” Mark’s computer that we use for navigation has been struggling with a power issue. The problem is the connection between the computer and the power cord and this came to a head today. But we decided to let go of the mooring at Koh Hang South and head just a little north to Koh Pak Bia and deal with the computer issue once we got there. But very soon after we left our mooring, we started hearing a terrible noise in the engine room. This is never a good thing, and today was no exception. The coupling that holds our prop shaft to the transmission was the problem. That is same coupling that we recently had so much trouble disconnecting in order to remove our transmission. Evidently one of the new shiny, stainless keys that had been fabricated in Langkawi fell out and the prop shaft was loose. We floated about for a bit while Mark worked on the problem and he finally repaired it temporarily so that we could motor to our next anchorage. Once there, he and Kevin spent an hour or so in the hot engine room repairing the problem. Mark dug out one of the old cast iron keys and hammered it into place. So things are a bit tentative until we get back to Phuket where we can get this checked out more fully, but hopefully things are temporarily repaired. Mark was definitely our hero of the day.
So we started out with a computer problem which then turned into a prop shaft problem, solved that, but then still had the computer issue. And Mark is still working on that one. The main computer we use for navigation is just not going to stay charged, so we have to get our back-up computer up and running with all the necessary software. I have a feeling that is a job that takes a few days, so for now we hope to be able to use the backup and get things fixed once we are back on Phuket Island.
Let’s just hope we can get there without any further issues.
by Judy Handley | Dec 27, 2008 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Thailand |
Day 66, Year 4: What a Difference a Mile Makes
Date: Saturday, December 27, 2008
Weather: Mostly Overcast with Light Rain in Late Afternoon
Latitude: 08 degrees 00.569 minutes N
Longitude: 098 degrees 49.927 minutes E
Location: Railay, Krabi Province, Thailand
Judy’s Log with Comments in Parentheses by Kevin (kjr)
What a difference a mile makes. We motored one mile from our anchorage in Ao Nang and arrived in a Thailand fairy land with limestone cliffs jutting out of the sea and out of the land all around us. (Thank goodness for the short trip. Judy has been driving us pretty hard; this morning we were allowed to sleep in until 8:30 am. *yawn* – kjr) We had to dinghy around to the most beautiful spot, but the anchorage is not shabby. We have two great beaches in sight and we dinghied around the karsts jutting out of the water to the beach at Hat Phra Nang. The bay there is touted as the most beautiful in Thailand and that might be true. But we also love Phi Phi Leh. The beauty here in Thailand is just so spectacular that is hard to say one place is more beautiful than another.
Our first land trip today was to what is called Railay Beach or Hat Rei Lay West. You can only get there by boat, but there is no lack of humans on the beach there. There are sooooo many longtails delivering tourists. Mark and I checked out the resorts there just to see what the accommodations were like while Kevin and Claire combed the seashore for shells. Each of the resorts had restaurants and we had lunch at one of those-yummy Thai food. We then walked to the other side of the peninsula to see Than Phra Nang Nai (Diamond Cave). Each of its caverns is dimly lit so you can see the beauty without having to use flashlights. We walked back to Railay Beach, had Bud’s ice-cream from San Francisco and then went back to Windbird to pick up our snorkeling gear. Our next trek was to the islands off Hat Phra Nang, but we found ourselves in very shallow water snorkeling over sharp rocks much too close for comfort. Kevin saw a big sea snake (easily 6 feet long with the eyes of a killer – no lies – kjr) and then Claire found herself between a rock and hard place with a sea snake looking her in the eye. The bite of these snakes is lethal but their mouth is so small that they can only bite the skin between your fingers. We had warned Kevin and Claire to keep their fingers close together and somehow Claire got herself out of her face-to-face encounter with no problem… she and the snake wriggled past each other between the rocks with mutual horror. We decided to take the dinghy around to the beach to get out of the shallow water and spent the rest of the afternoon shelling, watching monkeys, talking with sailing friends from New Zealand, and just generally enjoying the beauty.
We are now back on Windbird and our Christmas dinner is almost ready. It did take us a couple days to get to Christmas dinner, but it is finally here. (Stuffing! Oops I forgot Dressing! – kjr) Tomorrow we head north into Phrang Nga Bay. There are supposed to be drop-dead beautiful spots, but they will have to be pretty good to beat what we have already seen.
by Judy Handley | Dec 26, 2008 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Thailand |
Day 65, Year 4: Land Trekking in Thailand
Date: Friday, December 26, 2008
Weather: Mix of Overcast with Periods of Sunshine and Rain (and one monsoon – kjr)
Location: Ao Nang, Krabi Province, Thailand
Judy’s Log with Comments in parentheses by Kevin-kjr
‘Tis the day after Christmas and time for a trek. We visit a Buddhist temple and walk a strenuous 1, 237 steps straight up into the heavens to commune with a mountain top Buddha and see fabulous views of southern Thailand. (Let’s be honest, we were going to stop at step 600 but were shamed into finishing by the octogenarian who passed us on the way up – kjr). We then go for an hour trek through the jungle on the backs of elephants-very special. Onward we go to a national park to climb up to a waterfall and swim in the cool pool at the bottom of the fall before it continued tumbling down the mountain. Lunch was at a lovely spot beside a lake with a limestone karst towering over us. We then visit a fishery and get to see all of the fish that we have been seeing while snorkeling plus huge grouper and black-tipped sharps, just to name a few. (We were very lucky to be there at feeding time – or should I say feeding frenzy time – 100 pound groupers going after their dinner is a thing to behold – kjr). Then it is back to Ao Nang where we are dropped off at Milano to pick up the clothing Kevin and Claire had ordered. Kevin was having a cashmere suit and a couple of shirts made for him, and late on Christmas evening Claire decided to have a classic Chinese dress made of Japanese black silk. Now, if you know Kevin and Claire, cashmere suits and black silk dresses are not their normal attire, but the materials here are so wonderful and the cost of having tailor-made clothing made in 24 hours is so alluring that they went for it. They tried on the finished products (couple of good lookin’ kids – kjr ) and only Claire’s dress needed a bit of adjustment. We needed to wait half-an-hour for the adjustments to be made, so we walked to the waterfront where Kevin and Claire went to a spa for massages and Mark and I went to a lovely ocean-front restaurant to have a beer and spring rolls while we waited. And we did this while watching a beautiful sunset.
We are now back on Windbird and Kevin and Claire are fixing dinner while I write the log and Mark downloads the photos from today. We area all finding Thailand to be truly amazing. Tomorrow we move only a mile and half to another anchorage, but it is an anchorage surrounded by beautiful limestone karsts. These are mountains of limestone that rise straight up out of the sea. They are covered with greenery except on the sheer cliffs, but they definitely make a dramatic backdrop.
Now back to Christmas evening . . . We did make Skype contact with both of our kids which was the best Christmas present we could ever ask for. Our daughter-in-law Jo had a very special Christmas gift for us. She and Justin had written “Ho Ho Ho to Oma and Grandpa” on Jo’s belly to wish us a Merry Christmas from Wee Gerbil (our grandbaby to come). It was also so very special to see her mother and father, brother, sister and her partner. We didn’t get see our grandson Sam, but we did hear him while talking with his mother. At one point in our conversation Sam came to the phone to say, “Ho Ho Ho.” That was after he had taken a bite out of a sand dollar decorating the Christmas tree. Must have looked like a cookie! After our Skype conversations, we had dinner at a restaurant in a beautiful jungle setting. The food was good but we were the only people there which made it feel just a little strange on Christmas evening. But it had been a great Christmas Day and a quiet Christmas dinner was a good thing.
