With nothing pressing to deal with online, other than to answer two WhatsApp messages; one from Elaine’s sister in Ireland wondering if we were alright, since she hadn’t seen any updates from us for a number of days and a 4th of July greeting from Anne and Stuart off Time Bandit, who were celebrating in the Seychelles, we then dinghied back to a fairly large bay we’d seen on the way up to enjoy our snorkel. Fortunately there were a number of vacant mooring balls with only one occupied by a yacht. Selecting a ball closer to the shoreline, we tied up and hopped into the crystal clear water, surprised to find plenty of larger fish and healthy coral.
But, lo and behold, as we paddled around enjoying the underwater paradise, an enormous dive boat, filled with at least 50 divers and snorkelers, stopped right on top of our dinghy and offloaded their cargo!
Fortunately, by this time, we were ready to leave anyway, but had to wait at a distance for all the divers to descend and all the snorkelers to clear the area, before Elaine swam to untie the dinghy, then pulled it to a safe distance, allowing us to embark and leave. Thankfully, however, when we returned to Paw Paw, there was only ourselves and an adjacent yacht in the cove; our peaceful world had been restored! Our day was wrapped up with sundowners and a few snacks on the beach. Perfect!
However, there is always the piper to pay and, although today is our 2000th blog, marking 2000 days since we left St Lucia in the Caribbean to commence our circumnavigation, it was a refresher course in heavy weather sailing.
Without having data connectivity we had no choice but to rely on the typical meteorological indications of possible future weather developments, including the fact that the blue skies with fluffy white clouds, which had dominated our stay, had been replaced with cirrus and frontal cloud formations rather suddenly and, by sunset, clouds had started to build on the leeward side of the island. With our Anchor Plus application indicating a downward pressure trend, the lashing rain and strong winds arrived overnight. However, what we weren’t expecting was the wind shift to the south / south-southeast by early morning, churning up our beautiful calm anchorage into something resembling a washing machine. With an hour still to go to the top of the high tide and waves breaking over the reefs, we fortunately still had some protection behind the islet immediately to the south of us, but, with no idea as to whether this was the start of the bad weather or the tail-end, we decided to investigate the bay we’d snorkelled in yesterday in the hope of getting more protection. However, we needed to wait until the tide started to fall, giving us a little more protection and increasing the safety factor of getting off the mooring ball.
Unfortunately, when we reached the other bay, it was completely full of commercial squid fishing boats; clearly a good bay to be in! With that, we had no choice but to hightail it back to Phuket Island, where we knew we had a choice of a number of protected anchorages for the weather conditions. As luck would have it, we also learnt en route, when our data connectivity returned, that the weather was forecast to deteriorate even further over this week, so leaving was indeed the correct call. To say we had a very rough ride, though, for about half an hour sailing from the lee of Koh Racha Noi to the leeward side of Koh Racha Yai, was an understatement, but this was necessary in order to have the longest leg of the sail in following seas, on a broad reach versus having very large swells on the beam and on a close reach. With huge following seas, winds in excess of 22 Kts and a slither of our headsail out, we were anchored off Koh Taphoa Yai in no time at all, averaging 7.5 Kts, but reaching much higher speeds as we surfed down the waves. The last time we experienced conditions like this was sailing into Santa Marta, Columbia, after leaving St Lucia.
By the time we anchored, we were exhausted, but delighted to be back in a calm, protected anchorage. Staying simply would have been downright dangerous without a doubt! We’ll definitely be more cautious going out again for extended periods of time, though, versus being content to enjoy paradise for a day or two before returning; we need the sailing practice anyway!
After we were safely anchored we enjoyed a quick chat to Keenan who was on a stopover, then a long chat to Elaine’s folks in Ireland before having dinner and staying up late, irrespective of our fatigue levels by this stage, to catch Brooke and the grandsons before they headed off to Mexico for their summer holiday. It had been weeks since we last saw the twins as they were always sleeping when we called, given that they had “school” the next day. This meant we got more one-on-one time with William and got to chat to Capri when she was home, but we missed the laughter of our two little men. We were surprised to see how much they’d grown, although they were both delighted to tell us they were going to kindergarten. William, of course, reminded us that he was six now and going to “big school”.
Although it was sad to acknowledge that we’ve missed so much of their little lives with this pandemic, we remain, nonetheless, grateful for the technology that allows us to still connect with them on some level.
