March 2016 - Thailand - Page 4

21 March 2016   Boat Lagoon, Phuket
We hired a car for the day and did some errands.  Our visa expires on the 29th March and we’re planning to clear out on the 28th.  We’ve just realised that it’s Easter Monday on the 28th, so we called into the customs at Ao Chalong and thankfully, they confirmed that they are open on that day.

We met up with Peter Dyers, the owner of the yacht that dragged onto us before Christmas and he gave us the cash to pay for the small repairs.  After that we had lunch in the Lighthouse restaurant on the sea front at Ao Chalong, which was okay.

Despite having been in Phuket for three months, we've not seen any of the tourist sights, so we drove up to the Big Buddha, which can be seen for miles perched up on the top of a hill.  It’s 45 metres high and encased in white marble making it an imposing statue.  Unfortunately, the area surrounding the Buddha is still a building site, so it’s not very tranquil.

Another popular tourist attraction is Wat Chalong where there are several Buddhist temples.  It was interesting to look at the differences in architecture compared to the Myanmar temples that we’ve seen - it all a bit more garish and the Buddhas have a more oriental appearance wearing beaded hat.  I was amused to see a sign on a reclining Buddha telling tourists, “Do Not Hug the Buddha” - I can imagine drunken yobs lying on top of the Buddha. 

We also came across a young Indian Elephant on the side of the road, which was obviously a tourist attraction.  It was chained up, but seemed happy enough being fed lots of bananas (bought at a premium rate from the elephant's owner, of course.)

Having done our tourist bit, we went to the Tesco supermarket and stocked up. 

22 March 2016   Boat Lagoon, Phuket
After a week of steady effort, I’ve finally managed to publish the new version of our website and then discovered that Joomla have just announced a new upgrade.  Bummer - it can damn well wait for a few months.

I confirmed with the marina that we want to leave on the 24th and they have arranged for a pilot to guide us out of the 2½ mile winding, shallow channel. After that, I spent the day pottering about sorting out the new sheave for the mainsail; installing the running backstays; reconnecting the SSB antenna and spent a couple of hours running around the boat yard buying a few things. 

Glenys spent all day wandering back and forth to the apartment, slowing bringing stuff back to the boat and stowing it all away. 

23 March 2016   Boat Lagoon, Phuket
It was our last day in Boat Lagoon, so we made a concerted effort to empty the apartment and while Glenys continued to stow things away, I pottered around finishing off jobs.   I connected the wiring coming out of the mast - there’s a surprising number of wires with the Radar, wind sensor and four lights. 

In the afternoon, I made a new base for the gas locker from some pieces of teak that Nai had cut for me.  I was then able to connect the propane to the galley and tested for leaks as usual.  Unfortunately, there’s a leak past the tank valve stem on one of the propane tanks, so I rushed off to see if I could get a new valve installed.  

Fortunately, one of the local chandlers (PSE) had a valve in stock and taking the propane tank to a local gas engineer to be fitted.  It won’t be ready until tomorrow afternoon and we have to leave with the eleven o’clock tide, so I’ve arranged to pick it up on Monday, 28th when we’ll have a car.  

Back at the boat, I lowered the 15hp outboard onto the dinghy and to my amazement, it started after only two pulls.  However, there wasn’t very much water coming out of the cooling system.  It seemed intermittent and I decided that the water pump impellor must be damaged.  

We started to lift the outboard back on-board Alba and I inspected the water intake grill, which had a piece of masking tape over it - I’d forgotten to remove it after painting the outboard leg - dhuuuhh!   After removing the offending tape, we lowered the outboard back onto the dinghy and it seems to be okay.

In the evening, we had a Thai curry at the local bistro.

24 March 2016   Boat Lagoon to Ko Hong, Phuket
We were up early, packing away the last of our belongings and lugging them to the boat.  We paid the bill at the hotel and then picked up four big bags of laundry, carrying them the ½ mile back to the marina berth.

The town water in Thailand is not very safe to drink, so we decided not to top up our water tanks, so we only had 100 litres on-board.  We were planning to dump this water and then fill our tanks using the water maker, hoping that it runs okay after three months of not being used. 

Just after ten o’clock, I checked that the fuel dock would be vacant and we cast off the ropes.  As usual, Glenys was on the helm and I was on the dockside pushing the boat out, but for some reason, the bow wouldn’t pull in - I’d left the port bow rope tied onto the dock - dhuuuuh!

We escaped without any damage, filled up with fuel and paid our marina bill.  Then a guy stepped on board to pilot us out through the 2½ mile winding, shallow channel.  It was a spring tide, so the minimum depth that we saw was 3.2 metres.  Thirty minutes later, we were safely in 5 metres of water and the pilot left us.

Our first job was to initialise the repaired wind sensor, which should involve turning the boat through a couple of small circles.  It didn’t work, so I had to read the manual and do a factory reste on the wind instrument.  That worked and a couple more turns we were back in business.

There was no wind, so we motored for a couple of hours out to the middle of the channel between Phuket and Ko Yao Yai, where we hove-to in the deeper water to run the water maker.  With my heart in my mouth, I ran the generator and then started the water maker.  Thankfully it ran okay, so we dumped the old water and started filling up our water tanks.

Fortunately, a light breeze picked up, so we were able to pull out the genoa and sail at 2 knots towards our destination.  After running the water maker for 90 minutes, we’d filled half of our tanks, so were able to turn the water maker and generator off.  It was lovely and peaceful sailing along, then I heard a strange squeaking noise coming from the engine room.  

The new Volvo stern seal was making a horrible squeaking noise.  I quickly realised that when we launched, I hadn’t “burped” the seal, which releases air out the seal allowing water in to lubricate and cool the rubber seal.  I squirted some waterproof grease into the front of the seal and then squeezed the rubber to release the air.  The horrible squeaking noise stopped and hopefully I haven’t damaged the seal - I’m very annoyed with myself.

The wind picked up a little, so I had a chance to play with the main sail and the furling mechanism all seems to work well, so we look to be in good shape after having half of the boat in bits.  We arrived at the anchorage at Ko Hong (08°13.12N 098°30.12E) in the late afternoon and then cracked open a celebratory cold beer.

Unfortunately, there was no wind in the anchorage and having run the engine, generator and water maker for half of the day, the inside of the boat was very, very hot, with heat radiating from the engine compartment and the water maker in the front heads.  Our cabin was stifling when we went to bed - a massive change from the air-conditioned luxury of our little apartment.

25 March 2016   Ko Hong, Phuket
It was a very, very hot and sweaty night.  After breakfast, I caught up on some administration, while Glenys chilled out reading a book.  I checked our bank account and credit cards, which have had a hammering over the past two months and transferred some money around.  It’s amazing that we’re in the middle of nowhere, yet we have a good 3G signal, which gives us great internet access.

We’ve managed to spend £16,000 in the past eight weeks, which breaks down to:

The cost of hauling out in Boat Lagoon is twice that in Pangkor in Malaysia, but the facilities in Boat Lagoon are excellent, with four chandleries and many marine suppliers on site.  If we’d have hauled out in Malaysia, I would have spent many more days running around trying to find suppliers and parts, so I think that the additional cost is worthwhile.  

In addition, I found that the quality of the work is world class.  Nai’s team were efficient and highly skilled and she made sure that the quality was top notch.  Whenever I had the slightest concern, she would have someone rectifying it within minutes.  The engine work and rigging work were also excellent.  I may be considerably poorer, but I’m pleased with the end result.

We had a bit of a panic when Glenys spotted three shrimp/worm creatures about four millimetres long, swimming around in the bottle of water that she was drinking from.  We’d already drained the water tanks yesterday, so they should be fairly clean, but I found that the water filter for the manual foot pump was clogged up with the little blighters.  I guess that these little creatures have been breeding in there for the past two months.  

We cleaned out the filter holder and pumped some bleach solution through the foot pump pipes and then put in a new 20 micron filter.   That should be good enough to keep our drinking water clean, but we’re now going to flush bleach solution though the whole system in the next few days, just to be sure that there’s no contamination anywhere else. 

It was boiling in the afternoon, so we couldn’t do anything other than read and doze - I hope that we acclimatise soon.

26 March 2016   Ko Hong to Ko Yang, Phuket
We had a much better night’s sleep, it was much cooler in the aft cabin and we had three fans blowing all night.

After breakfast, we upped anchor and motor-sailed a few miles to the gorgeous anchorage at Ko Yang at 08°15.87N 098°29.26E.  On the way, I jumped in the dinghy and took some photos of the boat with the stunning cliffs in the background.

The temperature soared again after lunch.  It’s so hot that it’s impossible to walk on the deck in bare feet and we can’t find the energy to do anything except hide from the sun.  I spent most of the afternoon, listening to music and looking for new songs to play on my guitar.  It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I’m trying to pick one song by Jimmy Buffet (who is a God to American cruisers) and drove Glenys crazy by playing several songs over and over and over again.  I think that it’s going to have to be Margaritaville.

27 March 2016   Ko Yang to Ao Po Marina, Phuket
After an early breakfast, we motored into the deep water channel between Phuket mainland and Ko Yao Yai to run our water maker.  We first added a cupful of Clorox to two buckets of fresh water and poured them into the water filler in the deck, so that the whole system would be flushed with a bleach solution.   All the taps were turned on and we drained the old water out of the tanks and flushed the fresh water system with a bleach solution.  

We then ran the water-maker for two hours to make 340 litres of water, which is roughly half of our tank capacity. I filled a bottle of water from the manual foot pump in the galley and it still had a tinge of bleach in it, so I removed the 20 micron filter and have hung it to dry outside to let the chlorine evaporate.

We made it into Ao Po Marina just after lunch, so we sorted out the air-conditioning and retired to the pool.  As a special treat, I had an hour’s massage in the Marina’s gym, which was very relaxing, but terribly expensive at 600 Bhat (£12).

28 March 2016   Ao Po Marina, Phuket
A hire car was waiting for us at nine o’clock and we drove down to Boat Lagoon to pick up our propane tank, which had a new valve fitted.  Our next stop was at Ao Chalong pier, where we went through the process of clearing out to go to Langkawi.  It was all very simple with the various offices next to each other in the new building.  They allowed us to clear out there even though the boat was in Ao Po Marina and it only cost us 500 Chat (£10).

After lunch at the Big C supermarket, we did a big shop, buying enough provisions to last for a couple of weeks until we get to Langkawi.  We were back at the boat with all the provisions stowed away by mid-afternoon.

Our friends Steve and Jacqui arrived at five o’clock - they’re in Thailand on a month-long holiday and have come to spend a couple of nights with us, before we have to start heading off to Malaysia.  We had a few beers then went down to the restaurant for more reminiscing and alcohol.

29 March 2016   Ao Po Marina to Nai Harn Bay, Phuket
I dragged everyone out of bed early and we left the marina by half past eight for the 30 mile passage down to Nai Harn bay.  There was a good 15 knot breeze in the morning, so we managed to sail for a few hours, but by lunch time, we were motoring.

Steve was fascinated by the boat equipment, navigation and sailing in general, so I spent all day showing him how things work and answering endless questions.  He’s thinking of buying a boat although he never sailed - it’ll be interesting to see whether he’s really caught the bug. We arrived in Nai Harn Bay (07°49.24N 098°17.58E) in the middle of the afternoon, so we went snorkelling off the western side of the small island in the bay.  It’s a nice place to snorkel, but the visibility was very poor.

30 March 2016   Nai Harn Bay, Phuket
Having cleared out two days ago, we should have left Thailand yesterday, so sadly we had to say goodbye to Steve and Jacqui.  We motored around to Kata Noi Beach, where they would have more choice in accommodation.  

On the way, Steve popped down below and came back up saying the front heads wouldn’t pump out.  I had a look and sure enough it was blocked.  There were then multiple accusations about who had done a “big jobby” and blocked the toilet, but I was only pulling their legs. I knew that the pipes were getting furred up and it was already on my To-Do-List.  Having two toilets, I’ve got the luxury of waiting until we get to Langkawi to sort it out.

I took Steve and Jacqui ashore in the dinghy, landing in the north east corner of the bay, where the waves are not as intense, but we still took a wave over the side.

Our plan was to head 30 miles east to Phi Phi Don, but as we went back past Nai Harn Bay, the wind was blowing over 20 knots from the east.  We didn’t fancy the idea of battling for 6-8 hours directly into wind, so we wimped out and slunk back into Nai Harn Bay, where we chilled out for the day reading and napping - it’s been a hard two days…

31 March 2016   Nai Harn Bay to Phi Phi Don, Thailand
The alarm went off early at 0600 and we were soon bashing directly into the 15 knot wind and 3 foot waves.  It was a long tedious six hours of motoring and very frustrating that we had nice wind, but from the wrong direction.  We dropped the anchor in Lammen Bay at the north end of Phi Phi Don at 07°46.17N 098°45.72E in 12 metres of water on a sandy bottom.  

Phi Phi Don is a major tourist destination with hundreds of tour boats whizzing about and allegedly very loud music every night in the two anchorages close to the main town, so we chose this anchorage to be somewhere a bit quieter.  It’s not too bad, but there was a constant stream of tourist boats whizzing past all afternoon dropping punters off for a spot of snorkelling.

Our cruising guide shows that there was a good dive/snorkelling spot around the corner at Ao Nui, so we jumped in the dinghy and went to have look.  We dropped into the water next to some impressive cliffs, but there were so many long-tails chugging past that it was dangerous to be in the water.  

We gave up and dropped our anchor at the north side of the headland just inside Lamman Bay, which had fairly clear water, but the sea bed was mostly rock with some small patches of coral.  It occupied us for 30 minutes and I had a chance to play with my underwater camera again.  I found a couple of Blue Dragon nudibranches and took a nice close-up photograph of a Globe Urchin.

The anchorage is not very well protected with an on-shore breeze in the evening, so we had a few small waves bouncing us around.  However, we didn’t care because it was cool enough to stay down below and we watched the latest James Bond film.