Yesterday we’d hoped to go ashore for a morning coffee or lunch, but, given the winds, although it was mostly sunny, we decided it was more prudent to stay onboard. Instead, Elaine enjoyed a nice long chat to her folks in Ireland while relaxing in the cool breeze of the cockpit, as well as sent off a slew of emails as part of our passage planning exercise and had to deal with a rather annoying change to our visa status, but not before she enjoyed a much needed morning nap. On the latter, instead of having 270 days under the STV (Special Tourist Visa), under which we entered Thailand, the immigration law was changed, unbeknownst to us, basically cancelling this type of visa and thereby preventing us from getting our last 90 day renewal from the end of October, which was supposed to coincide nicely with our departure date; the very reason we jumped through all the hoops and paid all the exorbitant costs, only to discover, after a followup with our agent, that the next extension will only be 60 days under a “COVID-19 visa”. Everything here just seems so haphazard and disheveled. To say we’re over all of this is definitely an understatement. Between our unpredictable immigration woes, the endless pandemic lockdowns, medical matters that are causing a logistical nightmare for our Indian Ocean crossing, the crappy weather which prevents us from even going for a walk and no family and friends around, sailing just doesn’t seem like that much fun anymore! Not that what we’ve been doing for the best part of 22 months could be considered sailing!

Roy, however, occupied himself enjoying a baking day; bread for himself, bread for Elaine and muffins to share.

We also had a few more yachts arrive in the anchorage, including Richard and Yim, off Charon. It was the yacht that arrived in the anchorage early this morning, though, that just added to our current annoyance. In a huge, wide open bay, with enough space for at least 40 yachts, including a few superyachts, who have graced us with their presence over the weeks, and with only 4 yachts present at the moment, this particular cruiser decided to anchor his yacht on top of us, right over our chain and right before a thunderstorm erupted and, yes, you guessed it, he dragged then we dragged, but this time we took Capt’n Fatty’s advise; we weighed anchor and simply moved. We are done with dealing with idiots and prefer to be as far away from them as possible these days.

However, after a relatively quiet night, although, at times we had strong winds, it was nothing compared to what the forecast had suggested, so we decided to go ashore for breakfast this morning; that, of course, was until the floating village idiot arrived and a few subsequent thunderstorms changed our plans. This unfortunately was the theme for the remainder of the day, with rain throughout. In fact, other than living in England for a number of years, we haven’t been in another country until now, which has as many consecutive, seemingly endless, gloomy, rainy days. The weather did break briefly, though, late this afternoon, so we dashed ashore for a quick exercise walk, bumping in to Richard and Yim on our way back. After a brief chat on the dock, we’d barely made it back to Paw Paw, when the heavens opened again.

The other disturbing news of the day was the record 65 new local COVID-19 infections on the island for yesterday, excluding 4 new Phuket Sandbox arrivals testing positive for COVID-19, and yet another death attributed to this awful disease. This brought the total number of new local infections on the island in the past 7 days to 278, with 452 people now under medical care or supervision. Official reports have been altered to place the COVID-19 situation within the context of how many hospital beds are available on the island, currently at 770, of which 402 are now occupied. Patients are also being categorised into a “Red”, “Yellow” and “Green” status, depending on the severity of their symptoms, resulting in 18 designated as “Red” patients, 204 as “Yellow” patients and the remaining 180 as “Green”, none of which fills us with any great degree of comfort; a COVID-19 case, is a COVID-19 case, endangering the patient’s life as well as the lives of those around them.

I wish we could end this blog on a cheerier note, but we’re hard pressed at the moment to find the sunshine, both literally and figuratively, although the freshly baked muffins are adding some sweetness to our day!