Friday was just as gloomy and soggy, although our day was brightened up when we received photographs of the grandsons enjoying their summer beach holiday in Mexico. Fortunately we also managed to get ashore to meet our agent in between the torrential rain storms to handover our passports for our visa renewals; we’d nearly been in Thailand three months already.
While there, we enjoyed a nice chat to Derek, the marina manager, over a coffee, before Richard and Yim, off Charon, arrived too to meet the agent. It was lovely to enjoy a little bit of social interaction, albeit that we had to dash back to Paw Paw before the next band of torrential rain arrived.
By late morning on Sunday the torrential rain was replaced with a lighter, steadier rain which continued all day, but afforded us the opportunity to dinghy ashore again for a coffee. Unfortunately we woke to the news that the first cases of the Delta variant and the Beta variant had been detected on Phuket Island and it didn’t help matters that, by bedtime, there were reports that all the schools on the island had been closed with immediate effect due to detected infections, Phuket province had the highest number of cases for the first time in weeks, cases across Thailand had exceeded 9000 cases per day, with a record number of deaths on a single day as well, Bangkok and a number of other surrounding provinces were being placed under lockdown, inter-provincial travel had been curtailed and more tourists, who had arrived on the island as part of the “Phuket Sandbox” initiative, had tested positive on their second PCR test after already spending 6-7 days on the island, some infecting friends living on the island, whom they’d come to see, not to mention the potential of infecting all the strangers they had interacted with during that time.
Things were definitely not heading in the right direction, both for Phuket Island and Thailand as a whole, making us feel, that although we dodged a bullet in Malaysia, we may well have jumped from the frying pan into the fire, primarily because Phuket’s borders remain open to foreign tourists, although borders have been reinforced on the domestic front, and we were still struggling to get vaccinated.
Leaving our passports and vaccine woes in the hands of our very proficient agent, yesterday was laundry day using all the rain water we’d collected, following which we dinghied ashore to enjoy another delicious lunch at the Port of Call restaurant. An afternoon nap for Elaine preceded sundowners aboard Charon, who had left the marina earlier in the day and anchored off too. It was a lovely evening in the company of newfound friends, creating a slither of normalcy in our lives, although all safeguards were adhered to, including the supply of “COVID friendly” snacks, but, unfortunately, the day ended with disturbing news out of South Africa, reiterated by a phone call from Roy’s brother and social media messages from Elaine’s family.
Today we were up early to collect our hired car and complete our monthly rounds of the supermarkets for our provisions. Taking advice from Richard, our first stop was the large Villa Market on the northwestern side of the island, where we found a rather upscale expatriate community, sporting nice bars, restaurants and cafés, including Daily Dose, where we stopped for a morning coffee and freshly baked delight before continuing on to Makro to complete our shopping. This included the purchase of cloth masks to double up with our surgical masks, which was not only the latest recommendation, but prudent under the circumstances, especially for Roy, as Elaine wears her N95 mask and her visor when she’s out and about now.
Once back at the marina, Roy hauled all our purchases back to Paw Paw while Elaine waited with Richard and Yim on the patio of the Port of Call restaurant for our agent, who was returning our passports with our renewed visas. Over a light refreshment, our agent also succeeded in working with immigration to eventually get our vaccination applications approved, indicating that we should receive our appointments within 24 hours. Richard was also registered at the time, leaving us all hopeful that we should receive our first AstraZeneca shot in the not too distant future.
Back onboard, our day ended with the monumental task of sanitising all our provisions before stowing everything, following which we enjoyed a barbecue, exhausted from a very busy and upbeat day.
