November 4-13, 2006
From Telaga and Kuah, Malaysia to Phuket, Thailand
Passage to Phuket: a PhotoJournal
by Lois Joy
November 4: The Family. I love Langkawi, but I am happy to leave. After touring the interior of Thailand a few weeks ago, I am eager to meet some Thai people and to see more of their fascinating country. We arrived in Langkawi one year ago; this duty-free island has been a convenient base of operations to tour much of Southeast Asia and to provision for ports beyond; now it is time to sail on.
Nona and Daniela arrive promptly at 0700 as planned. (We’ve had a lot
of fun with these two partying and saying our good-byes this past week.) We
cast off and head for the fuel dock. There, I have an opportunity to take
some pin-up photos of Nona in the new French Polynesian boutique outfit I
gave her. It certainly looks better on her than on me! .
Twelve guests—Zubaidah and her family and friends—will join us for the sail from Langkawi Marina to the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club in Kuah, the island’s primary port. They are due at 0900; they arrive at 1000, Malay time. Daniela, Nona, Gunter and I welcome them as they come on board, six adults and six children. I commence immediately with the safety briefing while Nona has them write names on disposable drinking glasses. In addition to provisioning for the passage to -Phuket, as well as stocking up on duty-free items we will need during our passage to the Red Sea, we have spent much of the past two days planning for this event. None of our Malaysian guests had ever been on a sailboat before. It will be quite the responsibility.
Our Malaysian Guests
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We motor out of Telaga Harbour, passing by the local fishing fleet reflected in the morning sun and the now-familiar lighthouse. As we motor along the coastline of Langkawi, the sun rises straight above. With the late start, we will not make it to our planned anchorage. The children are already hungry; they haven’t had breakfast.
We stop less than halfway, at an island with no beach. But no matter; our guests are not dressed for swimming. Zubaidah has brought a noodle dish. Nona and I microwave batch after batch of food: a family-size bucket of KFC, which we know the Malaysians love, along with French fries, mashed potatoes and rolls. It is a feast that keeps us all busy serving for quite some time. After lunch, we talk a few of our guests into swimming, while the others rest under the bimini and watch. This is not an activity they are used to. The smallest child goes in naked and doesn’t want to leave the water. Of course! It is bloody hot. At 1300, one o’clock, we pull anchor. There is no wind, so we motor on to Kuah. Along the way, we deplete our stores of colas, bunches of bananas, apples, and kiddie treats. The kids play dominoes for awhile. Some sleep. The teen girls talk away on their cell phones. By 1500, we are docked at the Yacht Club and we say our good-byes.
Continuing the Voyage to Kuah
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Our all-female crew does the usual hooking up electrical and water, cleaning and washing down the boat, while Gunter hails a large taxi and sees the entire family back to their homes. Then we enjoy showers and welcome drinks at the Club, as the Universe dumps its daily Langkawi evening rain. I’m hoping for drier weather in Phuket.
November 5: The Thai Candle Festival. Our introduction
to Thai customs occurs before we leave Malaysia. After we play our standard
Sunday morning music, our day is filled with the standard departure routine:
hanging out a final laundry on the lifelines, filling the water tanks, making
a final fruit-and-veggie run. But the day’s highlight is an invitation
by two young Thai women--a ways down our dock--to a special full-moon ceremony
conducted through all of Thailand. This is called the loi krathong. On a proper
full-moon night, small lotus-shaped baskets or boats made of banana leaves
containing flowers, incense, candles and a coin are floated on Thai rivers,
lakes, and canals. It is thought that the festival originated in Sukhothai.
In the historical park there that I visited during the Peregrine Adventure
tour, an impressive sound-and-light show is held at this time. In Chiang Mai,
the festival is called Yi Peng.
Residents also launch paper hot-air balloons into the sky. I had the opportunity to come up to the stage to float a candle boat during an Extravaganza in Bangkok during my tour; so I am eager to participate in the real thing. Since we won’t be in Thailand in time, seeing this candle festival in Malaysia, at the “auspicious time”, is a godsend.
Nona is back from her job and joins us. The four of us bring a couple of platters of “finger food,” as requested, and our own wine and glasses. Our hostesses set our platters on their dock finger, on a woven mat alongside the other dishes. It promises to be a bountiful feast. We pour glasses of wine and socialize with the others cruisers from all over the world. Daniela introduces us to one lady who was in Chagos when they were there. It’s a small, wonderful world. Unfortunately, it had to rain on our parade. As the downpour takes hold, all the guests run for the cover of their own yachts. I feel so sorry for the girls; they had worked so hard to make their beautiful boats. The plan had been to take them into a group of dinghies, and to launch them into the sea beyond the breakwater after the moon had risen.
”They will launch them anyway,” says Daniela, as we snuggle in the salon of Pacific Bliss, listening to the driving rain pound the cabin roof. “They must; they’ll wait up for hours, if they have to, until the rain stops.”
“Too bad we won’t be with them.” We plan to sack in early, anticipating an early departure to the hole-in-the-wall, our first anchorage. None of us wanted brave the mid-day heat so soon.
November 6: At the hole-in-the-wall. Not all systems are a go. The insistent ring of Gunter’s cell phone wakens the entire crew. It is only 0600. Who could be calling? It turns out to be Zubaidah, awakened by the muezzin, and planning to go back to sleep after early morning prayers. She and her friend Sally want to see us off. What time? Gunter makes the pot of Starbucks and I set out lady finger bananas and the special sweet rolls I had purchased yesterday. Nona has stayed overnight, bunking with Daniela, but this morning, she has to go back to her job on board another boat. After breakfast, we say tearful good-byes. Gunter and I will miss her infectious laugh and enthusiastic personality. We promise to keep in touch via e-mail. By 1000, Daniela is hinting that the weather is becoming hotter by the hour. Our electric cords have been coiled long ago, cutting off our air-con. Without our new white tarp, the cabin soaks up the heat. We are very ready to say our good-byes to Zubaidah and Sally and to cast off.
We motor for three hours from Kuah, rounding the island of Langkawi to the
north and west. The entrance to the hole-in-the-wall is quite large, with
sheer rock cliffs flanking its shores. We motor carefully into the river,
monitoring the depth on the multimeters as it becomes more and more shallow.
This is when it is nice to have a Cat. We edge past about half a dozen yachts
anchored in the entrance until we reach a Y, with a fishing village floating
in one branch. There are moorings off the village, but it looks crowded, with
about eight or nine more yachts. The main river leads to a restaurant that
can be accessed by dinghy. We pass by a trimaran anchored at the Y and continue
down a few boat lengths and drop the hook. The depth is 9.7 feet. By 1815,
low tide, the day after a full moon, it will go down to 2.3 feet. For those
of you who like to follow our passages on MaxSea, the coordinates are as follows:
Latitude: 6º 24.78’
Longitude: 99º 51.93’
We have an arrival beer, a salad-and-fruit lunch, and go down for naps. At over 100º F., we were not about to explore quite yet! Even in the hulls, with the fans on, it was bloody hot.
Upon awakening, we had a long discussion about tide tables. We wanted to know just how low she would go. Finally, we got a rough idea from the tables stored on an old laptop that we had packed away.
By 1700, five o’clock, we were ready to explore with the dinghy. Hats, mosquito repellant, sunglasses, water, even an umbrella in case it rains. I’d forgotten what it is like to merely take a little dinghy trip! We sat there in the dinghy for a long time, Gunter and Daniela taking turns pulling the cord. No luck. Finally, Daniela succeeded in getting it running and we were off. But not for long. Just as we got opposite the floating village and passed the first moored yacht, cantankerous Volvo outboard stopped again. We pushed ourselves off from the side of the yacht with a good shove while Daniela pulled the rope. It started, but we knew our little excursion had come to an end. I wasn’t upset; I was able to take some nice photos anyway. It was all a part of testing the systems after a year of not sailing.
“But you had it running around the bay at Telaga…” I ventured as we climbed back into Pacific Bliss. “We started it at the dock after we had it repaired,” said Gunter, “but we neglected to take it out for a trial run.”
Instead of dining at the fish restaurant as planned, I chop-chopped veggies for a stir-fry: Portobello mushrooms, onions, garlic, ginger, miniature corns, bok choy, and eggplant. Then I pulled a bottle of Thai sweet chili sauce from the bilge, and prepared a stir-fry with fresh noodles we’d purchased in Langkawi. We weren’t hurting.
By the time the food was ready, they had fixed the problem: dirty gas in the filter and carburetor problems. Although the outboard had been repaired, the gas tank had never been emptied and cleaned. More items for the Phuket fix-it list.
Dinner was nice, and despite being anchored in the mangrove-lined river, the mossies and no-see-ums stayed away. By 2100, the air cooled to a humane level, and we were all in bed.
Photogallery Phuket 3 Hole-in-the-Wall Photos
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November 7: The Butangs, our First Anchorage in Thailand.
Latitude: 6º 31.7’
Longitude: 99º 16.9’
The western shore of Ko Adang
We motor and motor-sail for seven hours to reach the Butangs from the hole-in-the-wall, 44 nautical miles, on a day that, Thank God, remains hazy. The wind is never strong enough for sailing until the sky darkens with gusts of 20-25 knots, as we quickly head for an anchorage. Our sails are already down. By the time we take a mooring, provided by the Thailand National Park system, the micro weather system has passed us by.
We are out of practice, but we manage to secure the mooring on the first try. I’m at the helm, Gunter grabs the line our special hook, and Daniela slips the line through and puts the ball back into the sea. “Superb seamanship, says Gunter as I come up to the net and we do high fives all around, our old custom. “Put that into the logbook, Lois.” High fives all around. Before turning off the instruments, I enter the waypoints for the next day’s sail. I feel rusty, but like riding a bicycle, it all comes back.
We have an arrival Pepsi sitting in the cockpit and listen to the surf slap against white sand. The view is breathtaking. A blue-green fringe of reefs and clear water such as I have not seen for a long time wraps around the island. Boulders topped with white guano residue rise from the sand. A hazy blue sky backs a lush green mountain filled to the top with tall virgin forest. Pacific Bliss bobs gently on deep blue waters in sync with the surf.
Gunter and Daniela begin work troubleshooting the Spectra watermaker. We are not getting the flow we will need for the Indian Ocean crossing. I hand them supplies. After awhile, Gunter gives up and adds it to the Phuket fix-it list.
Finally, we are all ready for a swim. The water is so clear that I can even see the rudders of Pacific Bliss from the swim platform! But the current is so strong, that even Gunter holds onto the swim ladder rope. There will be no checking out those reefs near shore.
Dinner is a white fish made with a ginger-sauce-in-a-bottle, still from Coles in Australia. I add bok choy and white onions; it turns out to be a pleasant, delicate dish that I serve with jasmine rice and cold white wine. We set up our dinner in the cockpit, since I’ve heated up the salon/galley.
Midway through our meal, the lightning flashes are coming closer to the thunder crashes. Droplets lace the water near the island. “It’s coming,” shouts Daniela. We all rush to close windows, take our towels off the lifelines, and carry our food and drinks inside. The storm is fierce. Zero visibility. I would hate to be underway at this time. But by 7 P.M. we are always safe and snug, somewhere.
After dinner, we sit around the salon table by candlelight and listen to old Beach Boy songs such as Surfing USA and California Girl. And by 9 P.M., we are in our cabins again, reading, lulled by the slapping of the seas against the hulls. I’m content to be rocking again, safe in the arms of Pacific Bliss.
At 0400, I am awakened by a knocking against the bow of the starboard hull. I open our bathroom window. Sure enough, since the wind has calmed, Pacific Bliss is no longer taut at the lines; the big mooring ball is clanking against the hull. I go out on deck. A pale moon tries vainly to shine through a misty haze. There are no night sounds from the forest. All is still.
November 8: We are sailing! On the way to Rok Nok. It is 0930 and we have been underway for a few hours already. I’ve just handed out juices to the crew. Daniela is trimming the sails again. She loves it. The haze of yesterday is lifting, the sun is peeking through, and Pacific Bliss is in her glory, sailing with her wings spread, a full main and jib, at 8 to 9 knots. A perfect wind, so rare in these waters before the NE monsoon kicks in. We talk about the great time we’ll make today, deceived by the navigation program that projects ETA at the current speed.
But of course, perfection never lasts and bliss is always fleeting—that’s why we call it “Moments of Bliss.” After three wonderful hours of sailing, we are forced to use the iron jenny again. By 1330 (1:30 PM) it is bloody hot, 95º in the salon, 100º in the sun at the helm. The humidity is at 60%. Brutal. But we grit our teeth and continue on. Daniela is taking the brunt of it, sitting out there at the helm, on watch for fishing nets. Forty nautical miles. It seems much farther when the wind dies and the heat sets in.
By 1430, we are moored at 23 feet between the islands of Rok Nai and Ko Rok
Nok. The water is gorgeous, the teal green color I love. It’s the deep
hue of the salon cushions on Pacific Bliss. For the first time, I can see
a clear, sandy bottom, mixed with low corals. We all jump in.
Latitude: 7º 12.85N
Longitude: 99º 04.06
After a nap and a cold iced tea, we download pictures to my JoyBook (new media laptop) and then to Daniela’s memory stick. It’s a nice way to share great memories of Langkawi and our passage so far. Daniela and Gunter have decided that I shouldn’t have to cook again in this heat. We lay out a brotzeit instead. As the sun sets, we move to the cockpit. Two fishing boats cuddle together on the mooring next to ours. Could we have taken their mooring? Evidently it doesn’t matter.
Later in the evening, Gunter and I nestle together on one pulpit seat out at the bow, wearing nothing but our lap-laps. We are watching the moon rising from behind the island, yellow and lopsided, now two days old and worn out. Even so, it morphs into an orange ball, as it wobbles its way through the mist. Does this moon symbolize us, I wonder. We are six years older now, pushing our somewhat tired selves through the final two years of our circumnavigation. What will we be like when we finish? Proud? Elated? Or merely relieved that we’ve made it through the final fog.
November 9: We sail to Koh Yao Yai, our last anchorage before Phuket.. We are underway by 0700, eating breakfast along the way. We want to get as far as we can today, so that the final day will be a short sail to Yacht Haven Marina in Phuket. We are all familiar with the ordeal of reaching a marina late in the day, dead tired, then going through the motions of checking in, setting up water and electrical like zombies.
We leave a pair of limestone karsts, called Ko Ha Yai, as the sun rises behind, putting them in stark relief against a red sky. “There are many more beautiful ones coming up,” says Daniela. I look forward to sailing among all of them, as we take a 10-14 day tour with Ret and John in early December. The weather should be cooler, the wind stronger, by then. We pass the Phi Phi island group about five miles away on our starboard. We will visit them during our longer sail.
The sky turns a pastel blue, offset by fluffy cumulous clouds. By 1100, it
is 89º F in the salon. By 1540, we are anchored at 26’, a muddy
bottom in a wide nameless bay. The anchoring process is the final burn by
the relentless sun. We have been underway for 91/2 hours, a grueling day.
We take a short swim and a rest. Then we have a wine-and -chips sundowner.
The anchorage is quiet and serene. We are the only yacht. To our west is the
island of Phuket, our final destination.
Latitude: 7º 25.99N
Longitude: 98º 34.02E
I have planned a special dinner for our last night underway. So I brave the heat, with the sweat running down my eyelashes and dripping onto my cheeks. I’m wiping periodically with a towel and I fry hash browns and an omelet that uses the remainder of the Portobello mushrooms. What a treat! We fill our stomachs to bursting. With these special, imported hash browns, there can be no holding back. “How I love potatoes,” says Daniela, smacking her lips. She retreats to the net, catching the last golden rays. Gunter has that satisfied look about him. He moves away from the table to the helm seat to catch a faint breeze. The sun has set, and the entire sea is striped with maroon and blood-red, mimicking the clouds above.
I follow him there. “We haven’t had such strong sunsets for a long time. Certainly not in the Straits of Malacca we sailed last year. The last time I remember such vivid sunsets were in Vuda Point, Fiji.”
“Now this is a moment of bliss,” says Gunter. I haven’t heard him say this for a very long time.
November 10: Yacht Haven Marina on Dock A.
Latitude: 8º 10.16’N
Longitude: 98º 20.44E
By 0715 the engines are already on. We snack on lady finger bananas and bread-and-peanut butter breakfast underway, motoring the short distance to Yacht Haven (18 miles) in a light breeze. Within the first half hour, I am taking photos of the pair of pinnacles called Ko Sup, backlit by the rising sun behind our stern. But as the karsts repeat themselves and the sun rises higher, I realize that I will have plenty of opportunities for photos during our round trip in December. The channel between the mainland and Phuket is as low as 12 feet in places, so we motor carefully, monitoring the depth. After getting our instructions on VHF Channel 68, we tie up port-to-dock on the outside of the marina’s A Dock. “You wouldn’t want a starboard tie here,” advised Daniela. “The wind and rain would blow right into your cockpit.”
We hook up the air-con right away, looking forward to a cooled-down salon when we return from the café on the quay from brunch. I look forward to a restaurant meal. As we head down the dock, Bic, a young man from the little Muslim village within sight of the marina, arrives and asks for boat work. “Monday,” I tell him.
At the end of the dock, he accosts me again. “Washing,” he says.
“Yes, you can wash down the boat then.”
“He means laundry,” says Daniela.
“Monday morning,” I answer. Daniela will leave at noon that day, and we can wash all our sheets and towels.
We check into the marina and are handed our gate keys. Showers—letting the water run as long as we like—are next on our agenda.
The café on the quay is cute, with two teak tables inside and a few outside in a flower-filled courtyard. A dark-eyed, diminutive waitress takes our order with the nicest smile. I remember that the Lonely Planet calls Thailand: “the land of smiles”. We are here!
“A real cappuccino!” Mine is perfect, with just the right amount of steamed milk. I love the raw nature of ocean anchorages, but how I love coming back to civilization. Such contrast is part of the joy of cruising. Our coffees are followed by omelets, and of course, noodles for Gunter, the consummate “noodle man.” There is an International Herald and the Phuket Gazette, overwhelming us with the news we have missed. We’ve been sailing during the 2006 November 7th elections for many U.S. governors, representatives and senators. Not a bad thing. The politics had become vicious even before I left San Diego in October. We are pleased to see that Arnie, a.k.a The Terminator, has won Governor of California by a landslide.
We rented a car, a black 4-door sedan that even boasts a CD-DVD player with a flip up screen. Joy! One can sing-along karaoke while driving down the left side of the road! And back in California, they’ve banned driving while talking on cell phones, unless they are hands-free.
We’re off to a great start. Tomorrow, we will check in, all the way to the “bottom” of the island in Chalong Bay. We’ll provision again. And then we’ll begin to set up all the workers we’ll need: woodworkers to varnish and oil all our teak and to make us a new cockpit table; Raymarine, so that our GPS can talk to the ship again; Volvo for the outboard; and Spectra for the watermaker. We’ll need plenty of baths from the ATM. But for today, we are happy to be at a new country, a new port, and to begin a new adventure.