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.
by Judy Handley | Dec 28, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 63, Year 5: On the Third Day of Christmas . . .
Date: Monday, December 28, 2009
Weather: Most Sunny; NE Winds 10
Location: Nai Harn Bay, Phuket Island, Thailand
. . . our children sent to us a Oi! Special Holiday Issue with scurrilous gossip about our grandkids! This was supposed to arrive before Christmas, but when we last checked at the Boat Lagoon, the ‘package’ wasn’t there. We only knew something was coming in a flat envelope, but we didn’t know what it was. Well, today when we went to the Boat Lagoon, the Special Edition was there. It is like a big card with photos of us and the grandchildren on the front. The headlines are things like, “Grandparents missed by babies worldwide.” And “Miracle Recovery from Big Bonk” featuring a photo of Sam with the bandage on his forehead after his big fall in December that resulted in seven stitches. “Cranberry sauce ravaged by wild and noisy Ziggy” with a photo of Ziggy making the biggest mess you can imagine with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce on his high chair tray at Thanksgiving. And then there is this great photo of Jonah in a basket of laundry labeled, “Big Launderer.” We were so happy to get the magazine card and to be able to share it with some of our good friends over lunch at the Boat Lagoon. It is always a special time when you get to show off photos of your grandkids. We had lunch with Tim and Rose of Rendezvous Cay, Judy and Dave of Freebird, Larry and Peg of Blue Star, and Gerry and Donna of Scot Free II. We hope to see Rendezvous Cay and Freebird in Cochin, India, but they are headed to the Red Sea and we are not. So it is possible that our timing will be off and we might not see them again until we are all back in the US. When we leave here, we leave Blue Star and Scot Free behind, so it was really nice to take a break in the middle of a very busy day of shopping to share time with good friends.
We left Windbird at 8:30 am and returned at 8:30 pm. Except for the lunch break, those hours were all spent shopping. We first stopped to check on our alternator-may be ready tomorrow. Then we went to Ao Chalong to check a chandlery there for a Raritan toilet pump and a VHF antenna for Scot Free. We no longer have a spare toilet pump, but we have looked high and low and there just doesn’t seem to be one here. The same is true of VHF antennas. So on we went. Our next stop was downtown Phuket where Donna and Gerry applied for Indian visas so they can visit the Andaman’s and we picked up our passports with our six-month multiple entry visas for India. We then headed to a bank with the passports to get a money transfer to the BIOT folks for our Chagos mooring permit. In the time we did that, Gerry was fitted for new reading glasses and was wearing them by the time we got out of the bank. Some things are incredibly fast here. We stopped at one more chandlery downtown to look for the toilet pump and the VHF antenna, but again, nothing. We were incredibly lucky and found what appears to be the one and only VHF antenna on this island at the Boat Lagoon later in the afternoon, so Donna and Gerry were elated. But still no luck in finding the toilet pump.
We took Donna and Gerry to Super Cheap. Everyone must experience this at least one time. The place is absolutely huge and has everything from live fish in a tank, fresh fruits and vegetables, packaged foods of all sorts, drinks of all kinds by the case, hardware, clothing, flowers, you name it. But it is a dump of a place that is not air conditioned, and it is just overwhelming. But we knew what we were looking for and grabbed those items and got out as fast as we could. You save a fair bit of money by buying there, but you do have to put up with the hassles. Then we went to Farang Foods which is a distributor to restaurants and is on the total other end of the food spectrum. This place specializes in fancy foods and the prices aren’t cheap. But on items like flaked almonds and rolled oats for our granola, it is definitely the place to shop. The last stop was Tesco Lotus, a huge supermarket that is like a Super Walmart. By the time we finished shopping there, we were all exhausted. Gerry bought some prepared sushi at Tesco and we took it to Dunkin’ Donuts where we sat and had Iced Americano coffees with our little sushi trays. By the time we got back to Nai Harn, it was well after dark and we had to do a couple of shuttles to and from the beach to get all of our things. Gerry brought me and all of our bags to Windbird first, and then went back to get Mark and Donna and all of Scot Free’s bags. They had picked us up this morning, so we had no dinghy on shore.
We were going to move to Patong Beach tomorrow, but we have decided to stay here one more day. Our friends Ed and Lynne of Constance arrived here today and we are anxious to catch up with them and see what their plans are for leaving for Cochin. The time is drawing near. I’ll need to do one more supermarket run and then one huge fresh fruit and veg run before leaving. We’ll also need to fill up with diesel, so we need to make plans for that. We’re hoping to leave around the same time as Constance, so we are looking forward to talking with them tomorrow.
by Judy Handley | Dec 27, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 62, Year 5: Continuing Electrical Woes
Date: Sunday, December 27, 2009
Weather: Most Sunny; NE Winds 10-15
Location: Nai Harn Bay, Phuket Island, Thailand
A wind generator that is not working quite right, strange readings on our battery monitor, almost new batteries that lose their charge much too quickly, and an alternator that is still not rebuilt . . . those are the electrical woes we are experiencing and they all seem to hit at once today. So our entire day was spent trouble shooting the various problems that just can no longer be ignored. First we wrote to Southwest Wind Power about our new Air Breeze that brakes itself every few minutes. Then Mark spent some time checking the connections and rewiring and for the rest of the day, the Air Breeze has been working beautifully. So MAYBE we have that problem solved. Then we started looking at what could be discharging our batteries so quickly. We turned everything off except the Master Battery Switch, and we were still showing a discharge of 10 amps. When we turned off the Master Battery Switch and then turned it back on, the discharge of 10 amps disappeared and it has stayed that way the rest of the day. So Mark took the battery switch apart and cleaned the connections. We are recording the readings on the battery monitor every half hour or so, and all of a sudden everything seems normal. So we really don’t know what has been going on, but as of right now, it all appears to be fine. That must be a mirage, so we’ll keep close watch over the next few days to see what happens. We are hoping to get our alternator back tomorrow and if that happens then we can really test our capacity as it is normally. Wish us luck. We think electrical issues are the trickiest to deal with as a cruiser. We rely on Nigel Calder’s Boatowner’s Mechanical and Electrical Manuel as our bible, so hopefully that will help us make it through this issue.
Needless to say, all fun activities were called off for today. We did take a dip in the water around the boat and had salt water baths rinsing off with our Sun Shower at the end of the day. The water temperature here is perfect. This anchorage has clear water with lots of little fish even right here at the boat. There appear to be more jellyfish out there than we remember last year, so one of us does jellyfish watch while the other is in the water bathing and when we snorkel, we wear our bodysuits even though the water is warm.
We have successfully rented a car for tomorrow, and Donna and Gerry of Scot Free II will be going with us. The list is a mile long, so we know we will only accomplish half of what is on it, but it is nice to know what we need to do even if it doesn’t all get done. On Tuesday morning we will move north to the next beach, Kata, and then on Wednesday or Thursday, we will move to Patong Beach for the New Year’s Eve celebration there. Along with our other electrical woes today, we couldn’t even get on the internet. I wanted to talk to my family who was gathered at my nephew Rex’s home in West Virginia for a day after Christmas party. I could only connect by phone. We are still hoping to connect with Justin, Jo, and Ziggy later tonight, but not sure it will happen due to the internet issues here. In the bays to the north there will be internet cafes and we might have to do that if the wireless situation doesn’t improve. It was so great on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day-just not sure what has happened.
