Swaggie's wanderings
| Vessel Name: | Sir Swagman |
| Vessel Make/Model: | Seeker 42 |
| Hailing Port: | Pittwater, Sydney |
10 October 2013 | Na Jomtien, Thailand
Last Leg
The early start was moved to a late in the day one, calculating arrival times etc seemed to make this sensible. The weighing anchor again was problematic, taking some time to get fully raised and stowed with jamming in the hawse pipe the issue. The chain was twisted and jumping off the gypsy causing [...]
07 October 2013 | Koh Samui
Island Time
Koh Samui is a bigger island than I expected, not that I am sure what I expected, just that the expectation was smaller as far as islands go. We had anchored at the first spot that afforded some shelter and a chance for rest, but it meant that we would be on the ‘wrong’ side of the island for the [...]
06 October 2013 | Koh Samui
Gulf Wars
Now I know there were two Bushes that had done this before us, but they had the benefit of doing it from a nice comfortable, stable office. In one case having nothing more taxing to decide than how many is a Brazilian and whether a nucular device was called for, or in fact would work, if pronounced and [...]
03 October 2013 | Redang to Samui
Paradise Left and Lost
Raising the anchor proved to be a problem, we had been in such calm water that it had not thrown itself 'flat' in the well, so piled up and jammed in about every place possible on the way back in. Rob and I provided an immense amount of amusement to the fishermen as we tried to correct this. Eventually [...]
02 October 2013 | Redang
Handy Andys
The genset started leaking water into the boat, tracked down to an end plate on the heat exchanger that had cracked. We jury-rigged another plate out of some spare stainless I had lying around and used a new gasket that was in the spares kit. It worked, so the drinks could be kept cold again! It seemed [...]
01 October 2013 | Redang
Illegal Eagles
Now, I realise those keen enough to follow these ramblings closely (and perhaps you need to get out more, if that is truly the case) would note that we had checked out of More Lazier and were now going to stop at another part of the country, technically not permitted, in fact legally not permitted. Given [...]
Last Leg
Finally clear of the islands there we headed towards the fishing boat lights ahead to play the usual dodgem games. Failing wind meant the engine was used again to maintain any sort of pace, but around dawn a series of storms rolled across and behind Swaggie and for several hours good sailing speeds were reached. It was not to last and we stopped the boat to try to sort out the anchor chain. Undoing the anchor and dropping about 40m of chain into the water to get it untwisted proved that it wasn't the twist, as when hauled back in it was still jumping off the gypsy. A combination of worn links and gypsy meant that the last few metres were not coming in smoothly. At least it had the decency to wait until the last two anchorings to fail to this degree. Back underway with no wind about and the engine was used for the last night underway, not what I had hoped. Sunrise showed the Sattahip peninsula in sight and glassy seas with fishing boats all anchoring up to save the trip home and back out fuel for a day.
I parked Swaggie in her new berth and cleaning up began...
So, 6,086NM on, that is the end of this little trip and I am not sure when the next will be - or even where it will be, but I may still try to write a bit about it when it does occur.
To all those who sent messages of encouragement, all the people that helped along the way at various marinas and from other yachts, to Gary and Ritchie in Darwin that provided daily links to weather updates and a friendly voice on the end of the HF line, a huge thank you - it all helped to get me here. Now it is from here to there I need to think about......................
