January 2018
Yachthaven
Another few months have passed. We arrived back in Phuket just before Christmas with good intentions of leaving a couple of days before Christmas to venture out to the islands around Phuket, but……………………………………..well, we finally left on New Years Day.
Giovanni, an old sailing friend, who has sailed with Warren a few times on MS joined us for a few weeks on Kanaloa and spent 10 days in the marina before we departed. Still we had a nice Christmas Day at Yacht Haven joining other sailors and transients and expats for a Christmas feast on the deck at noon. It didn’t really feel that Christmassy though, not the same when you’re in a foreign place without the usual friends and family, even for me who is definitely not a fan of the Yuletide season.
So Jan 1 we sailed to Koh Yai Yau where we met up with Milly, Jane and Tricky from SY Ananda. We have spent time with them on various occasions down in Langkawi. Milly and Morg have been great buddies for a few years now and the two of them love spending hours together mucking around in the water and playing Lego.
Story Time
The next day we headed down to Nai Harn (down the bottom of Phuket) and spent a couple of days there. Giovanni and his Thai girlfriend Pim left us here as Pim had felt a bit off on the trip down to Nai Harn and didn’t think she would enjoy the rest of the trip. A very foreign environment for someone who has been in Bangkok most of their life.
We then headed down to the Racha Islands, Racha Yai a beautiful snow white sandy beach with a coupe of high end resorts on it but inundated with tourist boats during the day. Bliss as late afternoon approaches and they disappeared back to the mainland and the bay returned to a cul de sac rather than a 6-lane expressway. It’s easy to forget that we ourselves are tourists, but maybe having been here for a couple of years we fit into a different category. Maybe.
We motored down to the next island (Racha Noi) a few miles south where there was no beach to attract the tourists to and we had the place to ourselves, not a good anchorage overnight so returned to Racha Yai in the afternoon. The kids and I enjoyed a nice snorkel all along the outer sides of the bay.
The next day we left for Koh Rok Islands, a tiny paradise 30 km south of Koh Lanta. Small, rugged and mostly unspoilt, these islands are home to an impressive coral reef system, pristine white-sand beaches, a small ranger’s station, a restaurant and very little else. We were last here two years ago when there was probably only 5 moorings and two other boats. Bit of a surprise to see that there were now about 25 moorings and a few dozen tourist boats coming each day. At least here they have prohibited anchoring, built a floating pontoon for the boats to unload their visitors and the boats did slow down when entering the moorings. Some places its just too dangerous to swim around your own boat without the risk of being turned into burly.
We spent a few days here as it was bliss. Lovely snorkelling and relatively peaceful even with the tourist boats. Then on to Koh Lanta where we had a pretty rolly night as we always tend to here even though it should be OK during the North East monsoon. The next day we motored out of the bay but soon had to drift around as we tried to find where a strange electrical smell was coming from. After some time spent tightening the engine belts we were on our way again and rewarded with a nice Barracuda just north of Phi Phi Island. A very edible fish and we feasted on it with Ananda that night in a lovely flat anchorage at Koh Yai Yay along with a spectacular electrical storm. These are frequent over in this part of the world and lovely to see from a distance but too many boats we know have been struck here and suffered varying degrees of damage. It’s the only time I get to eat fresh big fish as a lot of the fish eaten in Thailand is farmed and has a bit of a muddy taste.
Sadly after a wonderful 10 days out we had to return to YH as Warren had to return to NZ. It was a really enjoyable cruise and nice to get out and use Kanaloa. Still a few things to iron out. We did manage to get the main furler jammed but once back in the marina managed to free it with Tricky volunteering to go up the mast. There is definitely a knack to getting the right angle and tension on the sail before furling. Weather wise we didn’t get much opportunity to have a good sail but the new sails did look good. The outboard motors were next to useless and we were lamenting having to sell our faithful old 8 horse Yamaha, it no longer suited either of the dinghy’s on Kanaloa. It was a trusty outboard that we have had for 7 years on Mustang Sally and sold it to Gary for not a lot, he was extremely pleased with his purchase though. We met Gary down in Racha and he very sheepishly told me that it was now at rest on the bottom of the sea having met with some unfortunate incident which he mumbled over. He pleaded with me not to tell Warren. Good one.
Louie and Morg
Warren ended up staying in NZ for 3 and half weeks so Morgan and I fell back into the routine of schoolwork, yoga and swimming lessons at Thanyapura. Also supervised some more work on the boat. Morg had a couple of friends come and stay, Matt his friend from Thailand and Louie from Singapore.