On the move and back to Yacht Haven.
02 January 2015 | On anchor off Yacht Haven Marina.
Clear dark skies(it's night)
We've been on the move since New Years day. We've ended up back at Yacht Haven since we know it so well and we still have a few things to do before we head out of Thailand. But first, let me tell you about New Years Eve.
We'd anchored a good couple of hundred years off the beach(08 00.725N 098 49.789E) so we could see the fireworks but no have to worry about any of them coming on board should something go wrong. While we sat there on anchor along with 13 other boats, along comes four more from Koh Dam Hok, about 4 miles southwest of where we were. Now the anchorage is quite large with plenty of space for who was there as well as a good 10 more boats so 4 more was no problem. Apparently, these four were traveling together. Two cats and two monohulls. One of the cats finally decided where he was going to drop his anchor--a good mile off shore away from everyone. The second cat pull along the starboard side of the first cat and they raft up(join their boats together with rope). Two boats, one anchor. OK, fine. Seen it before. Along comes one of the monohulls and he pull along side(starboard side) the second cat that is tied up to the first one that has his anchor out. The fourth boat pulls along side(starboard side) the first monohull and they raft up. There are now four boats all rafted up using ONE anchor to hold all the boats. If that wasn't so bad, the only boat that had his anchor out was the cat on the far left side of the group. All the strain was on is boat and his anchor. A couple of hours later, they had drifted a good mile plus away from the beach. Their anchor didn't hold. Apparently, it did later once they were a lot farther from shore.
When I got up in the morning, I found that the group had swollen to FIVE!!! The good thing is that they realigned how they were tied up. The cat with the anchor was now in the center of the group with two cats tied to his starboard side and two monohulls tied to his port side. The strain on his anchor was no equal on both sides. Five boats on one anchor is tough but at least they finally balance the load on it by evening out the boats that were attached to the first one. The last time I saw any kind of rafting up was probably back in Mexico.
On New Years day, the small boats with LOUD engines were back, carrying tons of tourists to Rai Lei Beach, a destination for tourists since it's supposed to be gorgeous. With dozens of boats going through the anchorage, we pulled up the anchor and took off not really sure where we were going. In the end, we pulled in along side the west side of Koh Yao Yai(07 55.135N 098 34.395E) for the night. We were boat number three in the small anchorage. By night fall, there were 8 sitting pretty in the water. The wind shifted a bit during the night from coming from the east, making this a nice anchorage to coming from the north, making it a rolly anchorage and a bit uncomfortable. We pulled up the anchor this morning and took off again. This time for Yacht Haven Marina. We have a few things that need taking care of before we head for Ao Chalong where we will be checking out of Thailand
Tomorrow, we will be launching Puff(our new dinghy) and heading in with both our outboards. The Tohatsu we bought a couple of days ago is doing well, but with this big jump ahead of us, we want her to get a good servicing by a pro, not just an amateur like myself. We want her all checked out so there will be no surprised along our way. We don't need that. We need to restock some more while we are at it and we are still waiting for our replacement Rocna anchor to show up and we have some friends we still want to see if we can pull it off.