Arriving back at Yacht Haven early evening we caught up with Mike and Juanita “Keris” for dinner as they were getting ready to head home for a short holiday. The following day we went shopping with them and again had dinner.
We left Yacht Haven marina at 11:00, refueled at the fuel dock and had an uneventful motor down to Panwa Bali. In the bay were several of our friends including Comedie and Recluse, looks like time for a catch up. We spent the next 3 weeks visiting favorite haunts around Panwa Bali, Nai Harn and Phang Nga Bay, with Keris, Recluse, Silver Girl and Island Sonata before flying to Singapore for 2 days. On returning to Thailand we received another 30 day visa which will cover us until the boat goes on the ship to Turkey. We arrived back in Yacht Haven to be greeted by calls from Sea Mist, John and Cheryl and Kilkea, Marion and David, to join them for drinks and another catch up. We haven’t seen Sea Mist or Kilkea since Rebak at the end of 2012. At dinner later we also caught up with Phil and Astrid, Sophia, a kiwi boat.
Monday 10th March we attended a lunch at Chalong Yacht Club put on by Sevenstar shipping, for all the boats shipping on the March ship to the Med. It was a good time to catch up with old friends, Lyn and Dick “Wind Pony” and also talk to others getting their boats ready.
After provisioning the following day we had a short trip around to Nai Harn to meet friends and to allow Brian to give under the hull a full inspection, clean and replace the zinc blocks before shipping and Nai Harn has clearer water for doing this work. We didn’t stay long in Nai Harn; it became too rolly after a couple of days, so we went back around to Panwa Bali.

The Sevenstar shipping agents warned us the worst part about shipping was the waiting, and they were right. We waited for the daily emails updating us on where the ship was and when it was expected in Phuket, dates that moved daily, as Brian said “it’s not like we are catching a scheduled flight”. This uncertainty in not knowing exactly when we would be loading, gave rise to numerous questions like: would we need to extend our visas or do another visa run, when do we close down the freezer, do the last load of washing, how much food to have on board and the list went on. Also, not knowing the load date, we could not book flights to the UK until the boat was on the ship, so we had to monitor potential flights. At one point we heard the ship had been involved in a maritime incident in Indonesia and had been prohibited from leaving until an investigation had been completed. We later found out the ship, while leaving under pilotage, had hit or been hit by a navy tug, we were probably lucky it only delayed the ship 4 days; it could have been a lot worse.
With all the delays, our initial shipping dates were 5 -20th March, we needed to do another visa run as our visa’s looked likely to expire before we could load. The Sevenstar agents organized a visa run for 4 of the boats with similar visa expiry dates, to Myanmar, which takes less than a day from Phuket. Our issue was the pickup time from the anchorage, 04:00, coincided with low tide and we could not get ashore. Chris, the shipping agent, suggested he pick us up in the large inflatable and take us around to the next bay where we could get ashore. Therefore we were up at 02:30, Chris picked us up from the boat at 03:15 and we headed off in the dark to the next bay, transferred to a smaller inflatable and then waded ashore. After picking up the others, we set off on the 5 hour drive to the Thailand – Myanmar border. We had been advised that once we had cleared Thai immigration we would be going by longtail across the border to Myanmar. However the visa run driver knew another route and we took the 10:15 ferry to the Andaman island resort, cleared into Myanmar, had lunch at the very nice resort and caught the 12:00 ferry back to Thailand. All very civilized, we never saw the real Myanmar but we do have a Myanmar Immigration stamp in our passports to say we have visited the country.

The ship finally arrived in Phuket on Thursday 3rd April and we were advised we would be the fourth loaded, just behind our friends on Comedie who were third, out of 19 yachts to be loaded. We were asked to be close to the loading site on Friday, with a slight chance of loading. Life got busy, all the last minute jobs, including pickling the watermaker, now had to be completed, we had a final lunch at the Beach Bar, our first and last Thai massage and sundowners with Claes and Laila and both upped anchor at 08:00 Friday and headed for Koh Naka Yai. The afternoon was spent taking the outboard off the dinghy, putting it on its bracket and strapping the dinghy on the foredeck. We fully defrosted the freezer, cleaned the fridge and stowed everything below. The ship then decided to anchor in a slightly different location 3nm away, so we upped anchor and moved to the new site. They loaded two boats on Friday and we would be the second boat loaded Saturday morning. That night we had the first rain we had seen this season and it was still raining the following morning as we motored towards the freighter, to have the slings pre slung under the boat in preparation for loading. Three guys came aboard and with guidance from Brian on the sling positions placed the slings under the boat, forward and aft with the aid of a diver. Once Comedie was on board, we were called over to the freighter and the Loadmaster and his crew along with the rigger, came aboard. The lifting bar was lowered, the backstay removed and Gail, along with the bags, transferred to the inflatable boat as Dol was lifted up onto the freighter deck. Due to Dol’s keel construction Brian went aboard the freighter to advise where the blocks needed to be placed under the keel. We were both impressed with the professionalism of the Sevenstar crew and the care they took with Dol. Once this was done, he was down the ladder and we were taken ashore to Ao Po Marina by Chris, where to our surprise Claes and Laila met us. We had both planned to take the same flight to Dubai so we shared a taxi to an airport hotel for the day and then onto the airport for the midnight flight. They were then going to Copenhagen and we to Liverpool, UK, to visit Gail’s parents, family and friends before going to Turkey to unload Dol. At the hotel we had several phone calls to friends in New Zealand and a wonderful farewell call from Juanita and Mick “Kerris” on their way to Penang, Malaysia.

So now it is farewell to South East Asia, it has been a wonderful 2 years, we have enjoyed the many people, places and cuisines, but now it is time for new adventures in Europe.