by Judy Handley | Dec 9, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 44, Year 5: Ko Kradan to Ko Muk
Date: Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Weather: Zero Wind All Day; Gusting to 20 in the Anchorage
Latitude: N 07 degrees 22.54 minutes
Longitude: E 099 degrees 17.16 minutes
Location: Ko Muk, Thailand
We are sitting in the cockpit enjoying the aftermath of a beautiful Thai sunset. The sun glows bright red as it dips below the horizon, and then the color show begins. First the sky looks painted with baby blues and pinks. A little later the pinks become reds and the baby blues turn a grayish-blue, a dusky horizon. I have one photo from last year that someone wrote to me about on the Picasa website asking if the colors were real or photo-shopped. They are real and it is beautiful.
We defrosted the freezer today and then I wrote emails while Mark launched into a number of projects on his TO DO list. Today it was plumbing chores. It was lunch time when we finished our jobs and we decided to pick up anchor and have lunch on the one-hour motor to Ko Muk. Tina and Robert were still working and said they would be along soon. Ko Kradan’s anchorage was billed as 8-10 meters in mud. I didn’t mention in yesterday’s log that it had taken us 45 minutes and three tries to get the anchor to stick in what seemed more like coral rubble than mud. Well, when we pulled up the anchor, we unfortunately pulled up a hunk of coral, albeit dead, but still, we hate that. When we reached Ko Muk, Tina and Robert called on the VHF and said that their anchor was stuck under coral and that they were going to the little resort on the opposite side of the island in search of a diver. Robert had used his hooka to go down but he couldn’t get enough air to stay more than a few seconds and he couldn’t budge the anchor. We stayed by the radio waiting to see if there was anything we could do. There are more resorts on this island, so if they didn’t find help we said we would dinghy down to the resort area and see if there was help here. Luckily another boat that was anchored a bit south of Robert heard his radio calls for help. The people aboard were from Spain and younger and quite fit. Tina said the one guy just did a free dive and in three minutes had their anchor out of the coral. I guess that is what youth can do for you.
Once Shirena arrived, we got in our dinghy and headed just a bit south to the Emerald Cave. We knew the tide was going down, so we chanced taking the dinghy in the cave. Robert got in the water and pulled us the 80 meters through to the beautiful little hong on the other side. When you emerge from the cave you see this beautiful white sand beach and towering cliffs rising to the sky all around you. The cliffs were literally dripping with greenery, thus the name Emerald. It is the prettiest hong (open area reached after going through a cave or very narrow opening) we have seen.
Tomorrow we head north about fifteen miles to Ko Lanta. According to the Lonely Planets and friends who visited there last year, there is a restaurant there with the perfect beach setting and good food. So hopefully tomorrow night we will celebrate Tina’s birthday in style.
by Judy Handley | Dec 8, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 5, Thailand |
Day 43, Year 5: Ko Tarutao to Ko Kradan-Happy Birthday, Jed!
Date: Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Weather: Variable Winds from .5 to 15 knots; Temps in the mid-80’s F
Latitude: N 07 degrees 18.882 minutes
Longitude: E 099 degrees 14.942 minutes
Location: Ko Kradan, Thailand
Today is our son-in-laws birthday, so Happy Birthday, Jed. It is also Tina of Shirena’s birthday and we traveled here to Ko Kradan to have a birthday dinner at Paradise Lost, but it seems to be lost. We couldn’t find it. Robert and Tina went exploring, which means taking a trail through the thick woods and tall grass to the other side of the island, and they did find a small resort with a restaurant, but not Paradise Lost, and they decided they didn’t want to trek back through the woods and grass at night. So we are both eating aboard tonight and we will have Tina’s birthday celebration in a couple of days when we reach Ko Lanta.
Today’s sail started out great, but then the winds went down to 8-10 knots from the hind quarter, so we put up the spinnaker. No sooner had we done this than the winds totally died. So back down with the asymmetrical spinner and on with the motor. Then the winds returned and we had a great sail for a couple of hours. All of this time, we are negotiating between little black flags that mark fish traps. They are everywhere and make navigating most difficult. Add to that the fishing boats that travel in tandem and drag a net between the two. At one point, a pair headed straight for us and we could not avert. I think they were fishing for a cruising boat, but we simply disengaged the motor and floated over their drag net. We ended up motoring through the later afternoon, but that one good sail in the middle of the day was great. We are not supposed to have good sailing winds for the next couple of days, so we will make a one-hour motor sail to Ko Muk tomorrow and then leave there for Ko Lanta in another day or so. We will stay there until the winds are favorable for a passage to Phuket.
It is so great being out here cruising once again. I had time today to do a laundry, reply to a number of over-due emails, and even read a chapter or two in my current novel. It is relaxing out here and the scenery is beautiful. The limestone karsts (cliffs) rise out of the water and look ghostly but dramatic in distance. We haven’t reached snorkeling territory yet, but we will get there. I can’t wait to get in the water again.
by Judy Handley | Dec 7, 2009 | Malaysia, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 42, Year 5: Malaysia to Thailand
Date: Monday, December 7, 2009
Weather: Very Warm; Variable Winds
Location: Koh Tarutao, THAILAND!!!
We left Kuah this morning with almost no wind. This allowed us to do some maneuvering to set the wind indicator which did not give us true readings all of last year. In order to do this, we needed to turn circles in absolutely calm waters so that the wind indicator on the top of the mast would automatically adjust itself to the correct setting. We were doing this today because while we were home in the US Mark bought a new remote control for the Auto Pilot and it suggested this maneuver. Now, hopefully, we will know the true wind direction.
We sailed west through the slot taking us to the west side of Langkawi, and then northeast to Koh Tarutao. We motored sailed with mainsail up, and then we sailed with main and headsail. Then we motored some more and sailed once again with main, headsail, and staysail. Then we put up the spinnaker. Once the spinnaker came down, we decided to motor sail with just the mainsail up to our destination. The good thing about the fluky winds is that we got to try all the different sail configurations on Windbird in one day. Everything was working great. The bad thing is that it was not an easy run. We had to keep changing sails. But we reached our destination in the late afternoon, had Robert and Tina of Shirena over for Happy Hour, and are now ready to travel on tomorrow. We explored this anchorage last year with our friends Kevin and Claire so we had no driving force to go ashore. Tomorrow we are headed to Ko Kradan. This is an island we have not visited before, but tomorrow is Tina’s birthday (as well as our son-in-law Jed’s) and she wants to have dinner at a restaurant there. Sounds like a great idea to us. We can celebrate two birthdays in one. So off we will go early in the morning.
by Judy Handley | Dec 6, 2009 | Malaysia, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 41, Year 5: Checking Out of Malaysia
Date: Sunday, December 6, 2009
Weather: Change in the Weather; Overcast and Humid
Location: Kuah, Langkawi, Malaysia
We have finally checked out of Malaysia and will be leaving in the morning for Thailand. Shirena left this morning and we hope to catch up with them at Ko Taratao by tomorrow evening.
This was a day to get all of the last things we had on our MUST DO list done. Mark changed the engine oil, I worked all day finishing one last Christmas present for a grandchild so I can get the package in the mail before we leave in the morning, and Mark made one last trip to town to buy a few provisions that used up all of our Malaysian money except what we will need to send the package tomorrow morning. I am currently canning spaghetti sauce and we have downloaded the last of websites we want to read about going around South Africa. So we are feeling pretty good about being ready to go. We talked to Justin, Jo, and Ziggy earlier today which was their Saturday night, and we have just finished talking with Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah on their Sunday morning. Ziggy was the squealer as always, but it was time for bed and he was tired, so we got only a limited number of squeals and smiles before he was done with looking at the computer screen. When we talked to Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah it was their morning and it was time for Jonah’s nap. So, after a few delightful smiles at the camera, we mostly saw him sleeping. But Sam, on the other hand, was non-stop entertainment. He is old enough to know who we are so he kicked into high gear. He sang for us, played the violin, and took me sailing on his little wooden sailboat. Unfortunately Mark didn’t get to go along. It was just Sam the elephant and Oma the reindeer on Windbird. We just love to see the grandbabies doing whatever they are doing.
This morning, Jean Pierre of Safina came over and spent a good deal of time with us discussing our AGM battery purchase in Singapore this time last year. He needs new batteries and thought the price he was given here was out of the ballpark, but actually it is almost the same as we paid in Singapore. In fact, there is only one distributor for Trojan AGM’s in this part of the world and that distributor is in Singapore. He was ready to turn around and sail south to get a better price, but I think we convinced him that he will not do better than the price quoted here. After he left, we had a flurry of visitors. The first was a group young sailors on small club racing boats. They were being given instructions right next to Windbird and then off they went. Next, Darrell and Loretta of CanKata came over to get a copy of The King and I video from us. And then a couple who had emailed our website last year as they were preparing to set sail from Australia dropped by. Peter and Dell of Pacific Express had read all of our Indonesian logs and just wanted to thank us for the information.
So now we will head north and enjoy a few days of island hopping before checking into Thailand. We hope to have time to read more about the passage to South Africa as we travel. We have made the decision to go that way, but we certainly need to spend a great deal of time sorting through the details of where we should be when in terms of the weather.
by Judy Handley | Dec 5, 2009 | Malaysia, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 40, Year 5: The Waterline is Still Going Down
Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009
Weather: Beautiful Day; E Winds 15 Knots
Location: Kuah, Langkawi, Malaysia
How low can you go? Just when I thought I had bought all that you can buy in Kuah, I found even more goodies. So that waterline has gone down even lower. We went to town this morning with Ed and Lynne of Constance and they showed us a few stores that we had missed. We found capers, sun-dried tomatoes, bulk yeast, and US canned goods. We also bought cheddar cheese and then with heavily laden packs we walked back to the jetty. It took the rest of the day to get all of the things we have been buying packed away properly. We labeled the cans of food, organized them in cabinets, and recorded the locations in an Excel spreadsheet so we will be able to find things when we need them. By the time we finished, it was time to head to Shirena for Happy Hour with Robert and Tina and Darrell and Loretta on CanKata. Shirena will leave for Thailand tomorrow morning. We will leave on Monday morning and hope to catch up with them at Ko Taratao. This is the closest island north of here in Thailand near the mainland; the island where we met our friends Kevin and Claire when we left here last year. CanKata is here for another week before heading north but we hope to see them during the Christmas holiday in Thailand.
After Happy Hour we came back to Windbird to close the hatches and lock up before heading to shore for the last night of Karnival. We met Robert and Tina onshore and had a Laksa (soup) for dinner. We walked across the street to the Asia Café and had a couple of beers (no alcohol on the Muslim side of the street) while watching and listening to the music and dancing at Karnival. Robert and Tina are just beginning their world travels and we had great fun recounting some of our favorite memories of the South Pacific with them. We are so sorry that we will be parting ways with them when we leave Thailand as we have become close friends. We had planned to go through the Red Sea with them, but as you know, plans have changed. But maybe we will see them in the Caribbean in three or four years. Or maybe we will get back to the US and head across the Atlantic to the Med and see them sooner. You just never know . . .
by Judy Handley | Dec 4, 2009 | Malaysia, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 39, Year 5: . . . and Lower
Date: Friday, December 4, 2009
Weather: Beautiful Day; ENE Winds 15 Knots
Location: Kuah, Langkawi, Malaysia
The waterline just gets lower and lower as we pack all of this food into Windbird. This morning we walked to town and then got a taxi from there to what is called the ‘wet market’ on the outskirts of town. This is a huge building where fresh seafood, chicken, and lamb are sold as well as fruits and vegetables of all kinds. This morning the fresh lamb was a little too fresh for me. The baby was still baa’ing. This is why we don’t eat lamb much to the chagrin of our Australian friends. But we just can’t do it. We stocked up on veggies for the trip north to Thailand and then walked down to the a little Indian store that has the cheapest olive oil in town. A 5 liter container cost only 68 Malaysian ringgits which is about $22 US. Everywhere else the cost is almost double that. We also bought feta cheese and brie there as it is half the cost of the same thing in other stores. We walked back toward town for about half a mile to get to Plaza Langkawi where we knew we could get a taxi for only 8 ringgits back to the jetty where we leave our dinghy. Mark dropped me off to start putting food away and he zipped away in the dinghy to the Langkawi Yacht Club to buy a 24 hour internet pass. He came back and worked for more than an hour, but finally got us connected to the internet using the new wifi booster. The signal is not great and we are off and on, but at least we were successful in using the new device. We then headed back to shore and walked to the shopping complex known as Billion. We walked in and were immediately stunned with the new Christmas decorations and Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra singing Christmas carols. Most of the people here are Muslim, some Chinese, but the glittering Christmas decorations and music were almost more than we could take. The Muslims certainly do not celebrate Christmas, but they know the hype makes people buy. So I guess anything goes if you can make a sale. I went to the second floor of the mall to check out the factory outlet there, and again I was a little stunned. You can buy Carter’s and Old Navy children’s clothing here for much less than in a US factory outlet. That’s probably because the clothing is manufactured here, but I had never noticed this before.
We did our grocery shopping at Billion and had way more than we could walk back to the jetty with, so we took another taxi. Once the 48 rolls of toilet paper, 24 rolls of paper towels, and a huge plastic bin filled with canned goods were loaded in the dinghy, Mark and I got in with our backpacks full of other goodies. We stopped by Safina to tell them that we are not going to make the air show tomorrow. It is expensive, and we decided that it is just not something that we need to be spending money on. We then went over to say hello to Ed and Lynne on Constance to ask them when we could get together to pick their brains on just how much food one needs to take when heading to the Chagos for a couple of months. They have sailed there for two different seasons and have loads of knowledge. They invited us to come back for Happy Hour after we put everything we had bought away. We spent a lovely couple of hours with them learning that we have really not bought as much as we will need. Yikes! I usually over provision, but this coming year is a whole new ballgame-months on end with no place to shop. So they are going to go into to town with us tomorrow morning and show us some of the places they have used for provisioning that we didn’t know about. In order to get some of the things we need, we might have to take a taxi back across the island close to the Rebak ferry terminal. Evidently there was good shopping on that side of the island that we never knew about. So with the extra shopping tomorrow, it looks like we might not make it out of here until Monday. We really can’t wait to get out and hopefully have some time to read about the places we will be sailing to this season. With our sudden change in direction, we really need to do a few days of intense research and we are hoping the trip north to Thailand will provide that time.
