Sunday, March 1, 2009

Thailand

This is the first attempt at a blog. It will give the news about our travels, and some pictures as well. Please feel free to comment.

We have been making the most of our last 3 months in Thailand.

The highlights are:

Xmas .. a group of yachties gathered at a Nai Yang, a northern Phuket beach to do Carols and Cocktails on Xmas Eve and hold a BBQ on Xmas Day. David enjoyed his home made Pina Colodas – 6 of them. We managed to get lamb, turkey, duck rolls, chicken and roast veg. Every boat contributed to a great day of feasting. We even made Xmas Cake and Pud.


New Year’s Eve saw us in Patong (the “in place” in Phuket) watching fireworks and flying lanterns from our boats always keeping an eye out to make sure none of the lanterns landed on the boats as happened last year.

The rest of January and February has been spent traveling up the west coast of Phuket and out to island groups like Ko Phayam, Ko Chang, the Similans and the Surins. Some fantastic snorkeling, beautiful fish, coral and underwater rock formations. While there Virginia, the reluctant OD, learnt how to drive and operate the dinghy with the big outboard – a whole 10HP. She can now escape at will. Will is pretty ugly.

These out of way places attract people (mostly Europeans of all ages) who just want to hangout in simple bungalows or tents wearing the bare essentials which keeps D glued to the binoculars with the odd gasp and oh my God, look at those great ….s. Electricity is limited.. no aircon, but wonderful little restaurants and the beer is really cheap.

This is the end of Thailand for us, and others. We said goodbye to lots of boats that we have met in the last 2 years. Over 100 yachts took off from here to go to the Red Sea via the Maldives, Sri Lanka and India. Captain Bligh was seen to shed the odd tear and even contemplated gathering another crew to do the northerly voyage. Of course he wanted a 4 girl crew like a boat we met. Seems girls make better crews but D has always tried to explain that fact to V without much success or conviction.

The final weeks have seen us catching local buses and visiting the Phuket haunts we loved, and then meeting up with any yachties we vaguely knew for that last beer, Papaya salad, Pad Thai and a reminisce.

Our sail down to Langkawi was fabulous, all those islands that you see on postcards. Blue, green water.

So now its down to business again... getting Pura Vida shipshape for the passage south and east.