The combination of Chinese New Year holidays and holy muslim day meant we couldn’t buy the provisions we wanted on Friday, so we sortied forth again with our contract taxi driver on Saturday morning, to shop for duty free booze – Langkawi has to have some of the cheapest (drinkable) liquor on the planet. Our planned lunchtime departure from Telaga was foiled by the arrival of a mega-yacht who tied up at the fuel dock (our intended immediate destination 50 meters away) and proceeded to take on 5,000 litres of fuel over 1.5 hours. Then the fuel pump broke and…. and… HSBC decided to block fuel transactions on my Visa card…so after a series of minor setbacks we finally left Langkawi at 1500 hrs, bound for Phuket in Thailand, 150 miles away. We left our little furry kitty-cats in the safest place we could find, and have thought about them since – how they are getting on, and we hope their fate has fallen into benevolent hands and that they are at least ok. As we left the lovely, lofty Langkawi, we set sail only to lose the wind at sunset and revert to engine power. We thus motored into probably the most densely populated fishing fleet we have ever encountered, even in the Malacca Straits. The squid fleet bears blinding white and green lights, so are clearly visible and don’t drag nets, so, basically safe sea companions. However, the other fishers – purse seiners, net draggers and individual fishermen are also out in force, and the trickiest of the lot are the dual trawlers, possibly 1 km apart, dragging a net between them in a long range closing circle. There were two waves of fishing boats: one 20-50 miles north of Langkawi, and one seemingly on the Malaysian/Thai border. At one point we counted 38 large fishing boats in proximity and the radar reflected a dozen more. A very busy night. Dawn broke adjacent to the lovely Phi Phi island group and we set sail for 6 hours in a 12-15 knot breeze that kept us on the rhumb line almost all the way into Ao Po Marina in north Phuket, near the gateway to the jaw-droppingly beautiful Phang Na Bay. So, here we are, tied up at the fuel dock (no room at the inn, due to the imminent start of the Phang Na Bay regatta.) We tore the leach of our headsail coming up, so we hired a car and dropped it off in Phuket at a sail loft the size of a 747 hangar, along with a few other boat jobs, including clearing in. On that topic – if you thought carbon paper (what’s that?!) was long dead; wrong! It’s alive and thriving in Port Captain’s/Immigration offices in Phuket and Langkawi! Our clearing in to Phuket nearly matched the ease of clearing out of Langkawi. A generous dose of forebearance and cheeriness works well. We need to remind ourselves that other countries don’t operate with the efficacy of Singapore. Good prep for the (Indian) Andamans. A lovely dinner with Rascal (our Raja Muda race boat) was followed by a busy boat job day…and off to the dinghy engine repair man tomorrow. We move aboard yacht Rusalka on Feb 1, for the 5 day Phang Na Bay regatta. We intend to win against Rascal, the boat on which we won the Raja Muda in November – check your loyalty at the dock when it comes to racing!