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.
