19th March, 2008

Floating again.

"Look at all the dust!" After 2 weeks of sitting in the boatyard while we were in Lao, the decks of Talitha were covered in thick dust and grime. The topsides still needed polishing, our companionway steps were nicely vanished. One out of the two jobs we left to be done was completed. Not bad.

5 days of cleaning, antifouling, shopping for food, waiting for the right tide then we were back in the water. The team of men at Ratanachai who are in charge of getting boats in and out of the water are very well organized, no voices used, all instructions are through hand signals. The rope handlers and cradle handlers do not take their eyes off the leading man in his conspicuous yellow coat. He has a large repertoire of signals which are obeyed instantly. 8am was our splash time and by a little after 8.30am we were motoring down the grimy river towards the blue waters of Phang Nga Bay.

The new anti fouling had us slipping through the water nicely so it was not long before we were anchored in Panwa Bali, a swim then a clean up inside to get rid of the last of the dust. After a couple of days of rest and recreation, we made our way around to Nai Harn on the West coast of Phuket. We had not yet gone north of Nai Harn by boat on this coast, the tourist mecca of Phuket. Nai Harn is a lovely bay, a beautiful golden beach covered in umbrellas, swimmers and massage benches, a few hotels and restaurants around the edges. Swimming off the boat in clean clear water, schools of small fish dart around in the shade of the boat. The nights are peaceful. We spent an enjoyable couple of days catching up with cruising friends before we sailed north to Patong.

The wind came in, 20 knots and for the first time in weeks we sailed 10 miles, no motor we had nearly forgotten what it was like. We planned to sail on past Patong but as we passed we heard Michelle from Four Star, another Kiwi boat, on the VHF radio. We called her up to say "gidday" and our plans changed. "Come back to Patong and come out to dinner, Ginny and David from Pura Vida are coming too." A few hours later and we were wandering past bars full of pole dancers, bar girls, male tourists on the prowl, ladies, as well as some not quite ladies, of the night looking for their pot of gold.

We stayed 3 nights, each night the wind blew and the music from shore pounded out until the early hours. The second night, the wind woke me up, checking our position I noticed Tradition drifting out in the middle of the bay. Roger had woken to find a dive boat dragging down on top of them, its crew still asleep. As Tradition quickly moved away a rope caught on the propeller. The wind and radio talk had woken several yachts up, an anxious half hour for us all as we watched Roger and Julie reanchor in the middle of the bay. I am sure some of the men were a little disappointed that they didn't have to rush off in the middle of the night in dinghies to rescue Tradition. In the morning Alan helped Roger replace a broken pin in the drive shaft. The dive boat crew apparently woke up just in time, a few metres from the reef.

The last night in Patong we went to the Simon Show cabaret, a slick entertaining show by lip-synching boy/girls or shims as they are called here. The boob jobs and costumes were fantastic, very Las Vegas. After the show the cast comes outside for photos, up to 100Bht ($4NZ) to have a photo with a cast member. The be-feathered and bejeweled lady from the finale got most of the photo/money attention the other ladies had to work hard to get their share. The other leading ladies were being very pretty and nice although a few bitchy looks were sent her way as she posed her feathered wings to effectively dominate the proceedings!

Three late nights in a row, we couldn't keep up to the pace of loud in your face Patong. We moved further north to Bang Tao where we tucked ourselves in its far northern corner well away from the hotels, jet skis and pole dancing bars. For a few hours we were surrounded by small fishing boats (longtails) scanning the bay for the huge pink jellyfish that glide through these warm waters. Two men in each boat, one maneuvers the boat, swinging the heavy longtail engine from side to side, with a net on a long pole, the other man scoops the pink jelly fish into the boat. We had seen this happening at Krabi and wondered what the jelly fish were used for. We found out when out exploring in the dinghy.

Exploring the canal that runs behind Bang Tao beach we came across the open air processing of the jellyfish, the smell forewarned us of the work being done on the canal banks. Standing knee deep in what looked like pink slush 2 men were lifting the heavy pink sloppy jelly fish into a laundry basket, 3 to a basket. The basket was then heaved up to a very rudimentary processing bench where 3 woman chopped something out from amongst the jelly fish which now looked like a pink slushy mass. Through the foreman's broken English and our very limited Thai, we understood that the jelly fish was then to be taken away, dried and sent to Korea. I don't know what they are used for as the pink jelly fish don't look at all appetizing.

The fishermen get 7bht per jelly fish, 28cents NZ. The minimum daily wage, (not hourly, daily) has just gone to 193BHt ($NZ8) here in Phuket, 27 or 28 jelly fish per day. A very hard way to earn a daily wage, the jelly fish sting as they lift them out of their boats by hand so the men have to constantly wash themselves in the river. 20 longtails netting 30 or 40 jelly fish a day each there aren't going to be many left in a year or two. That's just in this area, over at Krabi we saw 25 plus boats doing the same thing. I think I have said it before someone needs to retrain some of these fishermen if fish life is to be retained in Asian waters.

Phuket has the second highest daily wage rate in Thailand, 1 Bht less than Bangkok.

The Bang Tao canal took us past the jellyfish workers to a very up market apartment complex. Pretty bougainvillea and palm gardens fringed the canal bank where the Laguna Beach apartments are for sale at NZ$1.2 million. There are many of these type of apartments for sale or still being built in Phuket, the people who buy most of them are called Euros by the locals.

From Bang Tao back down to Nai Harn we had another good sail. We scooted along in a 20 knot easterly, past Patong, Karon and Kata and into Nai Harn for another couple of days. Three months in Thailand, we have enjoyed it all even the energy sapping, sweat dripping work in the boatyard. One more week in the Phang Nga bay and Krabi area then we clear out on the 25th for Malaysia.

Sawat-dii kaa from Thailand