We had been in Phuket,Thailand for 3 years after Covid began. We had been there several times before and now it feels more like home than any where else. But it was time to continue our cruising. Our plan was to join a group of boats sailing across Borneo, Indonesia and S to Australia. We decided to do a few things we had never got around to doing before we left. We had even considered retiring in Thailand but that would come later. This post is a random collection of photos from our last several weeks in Thailand.

Junkyard Theater has a Cabaret dinner show every Saturday. The theater is behind the Grind Café which is almost completely hidden by bamboo and trees. Ten minutes from the marina, Michelle and I had driven past hundreds of times and never noticed it. A Facebook ad led us to make a reservation to see the show. It was awesome. At the end a woman came by our table and asked how we liked the show. Turns out her and her husband, and son are the owners of the theater. We talked for an hour and we were invited to meet her husband at lunch during the week. John, Judy, and I are all of similar age and experiences and we hit it off right away and become friends.

They moved from Australia to Bangkok 30 years ago and then here to Phuket 20 yrs ago. John has a commercial arts degree and under the theater area is his factory. He has many international clients of the 5 star hotel variety, with current projects in London, Bangkok, and the Maldives.

He opened up this theater a year ago when he realized that that were many talented performers on the island that were out of work due to Covid. He decided to hire a few to entertain at the restaurant which has since grown into a full theater group with about 25 performers and 15-20 support personnel. Lighting, sound, backstage hands, seamstress, stage manager, choreographer, etc.
The Underwoods are very generous with their success. The factory and restaurant workers get free lunches, many live free in various rooms scattered around the huge old building. The Underwoods have given financial support to employees with overwhelming medical bills and other needs. They are very warm and welcoming to everyone and if you are their friend you have an open invitation to "come anytime, just show up".

I came to the shows and rehearsal for a few months just to watch the dancers, they are sooo good. The break dancers are officially the Andaman Crew who have been in several international competitions and won a few trophies. The girls are just pretty to watch :-}.

Now for those that don't know me all that well I have always had a fear of public speaking. I was so nervous about getting up in front of people and speaking I would rather cut my hand off. Then came the John. He first encouraged me just to walk across the stage during one of the bigger street scenes. He wanted more people walking around like the real life Bangla Road. Ok, I can do that, just don't run. So now, 7 months later I am in 2 skits at Junkyard, and 4 spots at the Marriott. Except for Mango Massage I don't really have any speaking parts, which is fine with me. There are many I could take but I am happy with what I do, although I am tempted. John has offered many times to pay me but my parts are mostly trivial and I told him I am retired don't want a job. And Michelle said She is the only boss I am allowed to have!!

I just realized it has been a year since our last post. We are still in Phuket and not a lot new and exciting to report. The borders in Malaysia and Indonesia are open again so we will be leaving before the end of the year. Unless more unexpected things happen. We have said goodbye to friends and left Phuket for the last time four times now. Maybe number five will be more successful for us. We like Phuket a lot and have made many friends but it is time to move on.
I have added some photo’s we have collected over the past year. We hope you enjoy looking.

We have been "stuck" in Thailand for just over a year now. There are worse places to be stuck for sure. Phuket went 3 months without a new local case of Covid, then suddenly went from zero to 250+ in a matter of two weeks. The rest of the country is under severe restrictions in an effort to contain it again. Officials believe it all started with large groups of partying youths and other "socially entitled" in and around Bangkok. I just read the Thailand ranks 124th in the world for vaccine distribution.
It has not been boring. Since our last update several months ago we have become better friends with many of the locals, had $6,000 in damage to our boat, had our diesel engine commit suicide, and revisited my hippy days.
The photo gallery has many new pictures with no rhyme or reason to the assortment.

We took a 3 week trip to N Thailand to a region I have never been to before. Michelle toured parts of it several years ago when our son & grandson came to visit. The region is mountainous and mostly remote with many small towns and villages.

Many different ethnic groups live in the highlands, many with their own languages, customs, and beliefs. The weather is pleasantly cooler than down in Phuket, and things are a lot cheaper. Our most expensive hotel was $25/ night, most under $20, and the cheapest was $7/night with a balcony on the river.

It has been a while since our last update and a lot has happened. We returned to the marina for a month to have some boat work completed and repairs made, then returned to Phi Phi for two weeks. There was a big festival starting in Phuket which we did not want to miss so we sailed back to Chalong Harbor and anchored for a week.
We were in a gray area with immigration, we never got visa’s when we arrived last March, just crew papers that said we could stay legally for 30 day, NO renewal, No possibility to get visa’s. We spent two months talking to immigration officials, visa agent’s, other cruisers, with no solutions. Complicating the situation the harbor masters were instructed not to clear out any yachts to leave the country until borders opened up. So one agency says you cannot stay, another says your boat/home cannot leave. Immigration policy changes every few weeks here so everyone remains confused. Eventually it got sorted out after many, many trips to immigration. Every 30 days we have to return to the main office and they will stamp us in for another 30 days until borders open, which could be mid 2021, no one knows. At least our stress is greatly reduced.
To make things interesting the following is how we spent the second night in Chalong.
MIDNIGHT MADNESS

After living on board 16 years, and cruising full time the last 11 years we had a new first. We have been anchored in Chalong Bay, Thailand for the last few days. Big anchor, 200 ft chain on a mostly mud bottom, 10-1 scope. We always back down at full throttle and our reversing prop give us almost full thrust. Around midnight, as another of many short squalls barreled through the anchorage Michelle went out to check wind speed and our position. All good. Ten minutes later the wind picked up again and when she checked this time we were less than 10 meters from a catamaran that used to be 100+ meters away.
For the first time ever we had dragged our anchor but this was not the time to celebrate. I took the wheel as she tried to get the anchor up. The chain jumped out of the bow roller toward the middle so now she is pulling it up across the teak front lip. As I struggled to gain some control and keep us off the other boat the anchor winch breaker kept tripping from the strain of the pull. Too noisy from the howling wind and rain communication was impossible and I could only guess which direction the chain was leading. Complicating the situation was the full awnings we had up. They hindered visibility forward and acted like sails, pushing us around with great force.
We finally got the anchor up and headed down wind behind all the other boats and dropped all 250 feet of chain, the 55lb Delta anchor, large snubber, and a prayer. We wrestled the awnings down, the wind dropped to about 20 kts, and we were happy again.
In hindsight I think the new awnings were the main factor in our dragging since it had never happened before and we have used this anchorage many times.
When we finally settled back down to finish a movie we had been watching my wife gave me a kiss and said we did that whole thing without yelling at each other, like that has ever happened.
Start to finish of our adventure was one hour. Since we did not damage anyone else, worked together smoothly, it was all sort of fun in a demented kind of way.