by Judy Handley | Jan 4, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Thailand |
Day 74, Year 4: No More Worries
Date: Sunday, January 4, 2009
Weather: Beautiful, Sunny Day, but HOT
Location: Ao Po Grand Marina, Phuket Island, Thailand
No more worries. Kevin and Claire made it home with no problems. Claire’s email to us just never arrived, so we worried for no reason. They said they really enjoyed the day in Bangkok Claire had thought it might not be worth the effort to get into the city to see the Grand Palace and a few temples, but she said loud and clear last night that we must find our way to Bangkok. We’ll probably do that when we fly back to the states.
The sunny days here are beautiful but they are hot. The bright sunshine today made for a perfect day for drying the last coat of varnish on the cockpit coaming but it was not so perfect for Mark who needed to be outside all day getting the lifeline netting installed. It actually has taken longer than he expected, but with just a little more work tomorrow morning Windbird’s decks will be child-proofed. After my early morning varnishing, I spent most of the rest of my day inside cleaning and rearranging
things so Sam will have a permanent bunk while he is here. That accomplished, I headed outside to scrub a white suncover for the back deck. It had gotten stored in an outside locker and was covered with mildew, but it is now once again bright white. We have a small kiddie pool that we bought to put on the back deck under the suncover so Sam can have a place to cool off during the hot days. I think we might all join him!
While we’re getting ready for Heather, Jed, and Sam’s arrival, I’m sure they are back home rushing to pack and probably wondering whose bright idea it was to travel halfway around the world with an active two-year old. I think it was our idea and we just hope it is worth all the effort we know they are having to make to get here. They arrive at 1 am on Friday morning, so Friday will be a quiet day here at the marina. If they are recovered by Saturday, we will start our sailing adventure. We can’t
wait.
by Judy Handley | Jan 3, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Thailand |
Day 73, Year 4: Me Worry
Date: Saturday, January 3, 2009
Weather: Windy, Overcast, but No Rain
Location: Ao Po Grand Marina, Phuket Island, Thailand
Okay. We are STILL here at the marina and have now decided that we will stay here until Heather, Jed, and Sam arrive early in the morning (1:00 am) on Friday. Of course, that could change, but leaving today was just too difficult. We have no dodger or bimini as we removed them for varnishing, so leaving in windy conditions with slightly rough seas could have led to a wet ride. And the weather was good for varnishing this morning, so we took advantage of that instead of heading out. So Windbird
is still tied to land for now.
I spent my morning sanding and varnishing while Mark installed a new bilge pump, took out the old sound insulation in the engine room which was starting to fall apart, re-tightened the bolts on the coupling that connects the transmission to the prop shaft, topped off the water in the starting battery, and started putting up the lifeline netting that we are installing to keep our grandson Sam onboard and not falling overboard. Windbird is being transformed into a kid boat. We have watched other
cruisers with wee ones with admiration and now we will be the ones with a wee one. The kid sailors out here all seem to do fine, so hopefully Sam will do the same. We are just so excited about Heather, Jed, and Sam’s visit. It is now a six day countdown. We also visited our friends Judy and Howard on Laelia today. They are one of the few cruisers here at Ao Po and it was good to reconnect with them. They are getting ready to head across the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea, so we hope they have
uneventful trip.
Foremost in our thoughts tonight are Kevin and Claire. This is why “me worry.” Where are they? They promised to email as soon as they returned home, but we have heard nothing. When we email them, we get the “out of office” response. We will wait until a little later tonight and then try to call their home phone. That will be early morning in Virgina. They live in a house with other people, so hopefully someone will answer our call and have more information than we do. In the meantime, Kevin
and Claire, we hope you are home safe and sound. And not having too hard a time adjusting.
by Judy Handley | Jan 2, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Thailand |
Day 72, Year 4: Exploring Phuket
Date: Friday, January 2, 2009
Weather: Rain Over Night; Overcast with Sprinkles All Day
Location: Ao Po Grand Marina, Phuket Island, Thailand
I know we are not supposed to still be here in the marina, but our chores in town today took much longer than we had planned. So we will be leaving in the morning. It rained off and on all night last night. This was not a good thing for the varnish job on the cockpit coaming. Nor did it help the last of the laundry to dry. So the laundry has been brought inside to dry and it looks like the varnish job is salvageable if this weather ever clears up. In the meantime, we have no dodger or bimini
covering the cockpit, so we have to close up tight to keep the rain out of the boat. Since the weather wasn’t cooperating with our plans, we rented a car went to do some of our chores in town. We expected to be gone four hours, but that turned into eight. We had hoped to leave our piece of toe rail at Precision Shipwright to use as a guide in making a new piece, but they, as well as most of Phuket, were closed today. Most businesses will not open until Monday, but there were still enough open
to get quite a few things done. We stopped at two chandleries and bought black cord to put up the life-line netting to keep our grandson from going overboard once he arrives. We also bought a new bilge pump to replace one of the faulty ones.
We then went to downtown Phuket to the Tourist Information Center to gather a little more information, left Mark’s glasses in a shop to be repaired (the frames broke shortly after Kevin and Claire arrived), were successful in getting money out of the ATM as long as each transaction was less than $65 US, had lunch, and then started our “tour” of the major supermarkets. There are three and they are huge. And not only are they huge, they are unbelievably crowded. The hordes of people were overwhelming,
but worse than that was that they really didn’t have most things I was looking for. All three stores are like a Super Walmart. They have more clothing and plastic trinkets than they do food. I was most struck by the rows and rows of snacks and junk food. No pretzels (Mark is out and this is his favorite.), but rows and rows of different kinds of chips, cookies, and candies. And there was every kind of sugar and rice you can imagine–red rice, blue rice, green rice. But there was not much else.
The only canned vegetables are corn and mushrooms and most of the crackers are sweet. It was easier to shop in Langkawi but that is because we had a guide put together by cruisers telling us where to go. We have a lot more to learn about Phuket. I know this is where many cruisers provision for the long haul across the Indian Ocean, so there must be food out there somewhere. And you can only buy beer from 11 am to 2 pm and then again from 5 pm to midnight. Of course, we were shopping between
3:00 and 4:00 pm, so we had to skip that.
Instead of going straight back to the marina, we decided to take a little trip north, across the bridge, to mainland Thailand. We had hoped to find the Phang Nga Bay National Marine Park, but that alluded us. We did see the countryside which we always enjoy. We returned to the marina by 6 pm to find it VERY windy. There is a high stalled over the upper Thailand and the South China Sea according to the Thai weather site online and it is causing this rainy, windy weather. It should get better
over the next couple of days, and then come back again. I guess when Kevin and Claire left the good weather went with them, but I’m sure Heather, Jed, and Sam will bring a return of sunny skies. By the way, we haven’t heard from Kevin and Claire even though I feel sure they should be home by now. I hope I’ll have a confirmation of their safe arrival by tomorrow night’s log.
by Judy Handley | Jan 1, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Thailand |
Day 71, Year 4: Happy New Year!
Date: Thursday, January 1, 2009
Weather: Mix of Sun and Clouds with Afternoon Rain
Location: Ao Po Grand Marina, Phuket Island, Thailand
We had a quiet New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. In fact, I don’t think either of us left the boat after we returned from taking Kevin and Claire to the airport. We have been working feverishly to get things done that can only be done in a marina. Our plan is to leave here tomorrow after a quick shopping trip and go hang out at nearby islands until next Wednesday or Thursday. We will then return here and get ready for the arrival of Heather, Jed, and Sam. I have been doing mega laundry since
we are at a dock with water and Mark has been doing a lot of work on the internet as well as other boat maintenance. The internet connection here is good and has allowed us to talk with our bank back in the US. We have not been able to get money out of an ATM using our bank card in Thailand. We think we have things straightened out but will really only find out tomorrow when we go into town to try the ATM once again. Evidently Thailand will only allow an ATM withdrawal of $65 US at one time.
We have never heard of this restriction before, so it will be interesting to see if that has really been the problem. We have also both continued to make Skype calls. I did talk to my sister and Mark talked to his brother last night, and tonight Mark talked to his sister and we talked to Justin and Jo. They are still in Europe and actually celebrated the New Year in Amsterdam. They head back to England tomorrow and return home to Santa Fe on Monday. Jo looks great and is feeling good and that
little bump is getting a wee bit bigger. The bummer of the day was that I attempted to get the cockpit coaming sanded and varnished, which I did, but as soon as I finished the job, we got rain. So that will have to be resanded and varnished in 24 hours.
The one thing I did not get to do was catch up on correspondence to friends and family. I know that won’t happen tomorrow, but maybe on Saturday. I’m determined to do a better job of keeping in touch in 2009, so I guess that is my New Year’s resolution. I’m getting a slow start, but hopefully I’ll get there. So if you haven’t heard from me for a while, just know that I am thinking of you and will be in touch soon!
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.
