Photo: Boys on back deck of Dol, New Years Eve
It’s amazing how some phrases become the catch word when cruising with friends, the phrases of the moment are “It’s the least I can do and I always do the least I can do” or “you snooze and you lose”
28th December we finally upped the anchor, rolled out the genoa and sailed around to Yanui Bay, Nai Harn. Whilst in Yanui we opened a sealed packet of lettuce for lunch only to discover a cigarette butt inside the lettuce leaves. If we had been in NZ it would definitely have been returned to the store. We enjoyed a week in Yanui, eating each evening at One More café across the road, including a night of celebration for the owner’s birthday with a buffet dinner and a live singer accompanied by a very good 11yr old drummer. New Years Eve was sundowners on the Dol followed by a BBQ on Island Sonata with hundreds of Chinese lanterns in the sky along with fireworks on each of the three beaches, good food, good friends and lots of fun. We also spent several days in Yanui on the internet arranging our trip to Cambodia and Vietnam, frustrating with moderate internet signal and most sites offering free call phone numbers from within the country, no use to us.
A “boys trip” to Boat Lagoon for some “parts” for a couple of the yachts we are travelling with turned into a bit of a fizzer when they arrived to find every business closed for New Year’s holidays. However, on the way back to the yachts, they were fascinated to observe that as they travelled along the main road, a policeman about every 200 – 400 meters, on both sides of the road. They were moving on any stopped cars, and then suddenly the oncoming traffic stopped and the police on our side of the road started waving for us to go faster and faster. This went on for several kms. We subsequently found out that it was to clear the road for some royal family members who were due down that stretch of road.
The wind finally eased on 3rd January and we motored up to Patong Bay. Two nights at Patong is enough for anyone, the stench from the overflowing storm drains has the ability to turn your stomach at times. We had one day shopping and the second we went to the movies with Keris, Island Sonata, Recluse and Simply Sensational to see Captain Phillips, a movie about an American flagged container ship taken by Somali pirates. We all agreed it was a good movie and we are happy with the decision to ship the Dol to the Mediterranean. 5th January we motored the short distance to Laguna, Bang Tao Bay. We spent 3 nights in Bang Tao Bay, walks and dinner ashore, games afternoons and apart from the usual hassle of jet skis, had a good time. Tuesday 7th January we motored around to Nai Yang, just south of the end of the runway for Phuket International Airport.
The second night in Nai Yang was atrocious, the swell came from the opposite direction to the wind, what there was of it, and we rolled all night – no sleep. However we decided to stay another day as we had planned an Aussie/Kiwi party for Friday and that night the wind and swell were in sync, very peaceful, plenty of sleep. Going ashore each evening for drinks and dinner on the beach has become the norm and is very enjoyable, there is nothing like the cool of the day as the sun goes down, eating dinner with your toes in the sand. Friday January 9th, as we have been 3 Ozzie boats and 2 Kiwi boats travelling together, we had an Ozzie Kiwi pool party on Island Sonata, celebrating the days early as we would have left the group on the actual days and headed off in a different direction. It was a fun day with the usual over indulgence in food, swimming between the hulls of Island Sonata, board and card games after lunch and plenty of humour, music and good company. The following day we had sundowners on Keris and a final dinner ashore before Mike and Juanita Keris, Kelvin and Ruth Island Sonata, Steve and Anne Recluse and Peter and Pearl Simply Sensational headed further north and we turned south back towards Ao Chalong in preparation for our trip to Cambodia and Vietnam. We anchored in Nai Harn for the night.
Monday 13th we motored around to Panwa Bali, arriving in time to say goodbye to Stuart and Sheila “Imagine” and John and Paula “Mr John” as they were leaving to check out of Thailand and head across the Indian Ocean to Sri Lanka.
We stayed at Panwa Bali for several days and enjoyed a couple of evenings ashore with Kim and Bob “Northern Winds”, and their niece Stephanie, who we hadn’t seen since leaving Ouvea, New Caledonia in 2010. It was great to catch up. Tuesday we hired a taxi and went into Immigration Phuket to complete the necessary paperwork and get a stamp in our passports that would allow us to fly out of Thailand leaving the yacht behind. That evening as we were running the generator, we noticed a sudden change in the sound, Brian immediately shut the generator down commenting that water had stopped coming in through the salt water intake. As it was late, we left looking at it till the following morning. As soon as Brian undid the lid on the saltwater intake we knew what the problem was by the overwhelming smell, a very dead, mangled jellyfish. Brian cleaned out the intake and the generator roared into life. Whilst at Panwa Bali, Brian also caught up with some of the maintenance tasks: changing the oil in the main engine gear box and high pressure pump for the water maker and pickling the water maker as we will be away for 3 weeks in Cambodia and Vietnam. Whilst Brian was doing this, Gail caught up with some much neglected stainless steel polishing.
Friday 17th January, we upped anchor at 7am and motored most of the way to Yacht Haven Marina, sailing the last couple of miles. When we arrived and radioed the marina, they informed us it was too windy and dangerous to enter; (by this time it was blowing 25+ knots) we therefore anchored outside the marina until the wind dropped. At 14:00 the marina called and we safely negotiated our way into the berth. That evening as we were having dinner at Coconut, Gail turned around and entering where Colin and Marion “Avant Garde”, we hadn’t seen them since the Kumai River, Borneo in October 2012. Needless to say we had a good evening.
The boat is now closed down and we are off to Cambodia and Vietnam for 3 weeks.