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.
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| 100101 Day 67 Thailand–New Year's Day in Patong Beach |
