The past two days have been all about passage planning and more passage planning, particularly for our Red Sea option. Overwhelmed with paperwork, Elaine recruited some help from Roy yesterday to read the BMP-5 (Best Management Practices) guide, revised in June 2018 and recommended by the UKMTO (United Kingdom Maritime Trade Organisation) and the MSCHOA (Maritime Security Centre - Horn of Africa), to extract the relevant information for yachts, while she continued to sift through the other reading materials.

Although Elaine had had a restless night’s sleep due to the high winds overnight, she still sat at her computer all day yesterday to try and get this piece of planning completed. For her efforts, Roy cooked a delicious Sunday Roast, something we haven’t had in ages, given that we didn’t want to be using the oven in the heat and humidity, which, of course, has stopped our baking efforts too; probably a good thing, though! An additional reward was an absolutely clear sky, accompanied by a beautiful starry night, a first in months.

Yesterday and today was also a public holiday in Thailand to honour the birthday of the late King Bhumibol The Great, Rama IX, born 5th December 1927; an event celebrated throughout his 70-year reign and is now honoured as Thailand’s National Day and Father’s Day. Formal events started with a blessing and merit-making ceremony attended by 89 monks, one for each year of the king’s life.

Being a bright, sunny day today, we both enjoyed a lazy morning before enjoying a chat to Andy and Paul, who have returned to Talulah Ruby III in Malaysia. Afterwards, with lots to think about and discuss, we dinghied ashore for a coffee and slice of chocolate cake before enjoying a long walk along Panwa Bali beach, up over the hill, down to Ao Yon beach and back again. By then we had cemented our thoughts and, on return to Paw Paw, Elaine got stuck into completing the last of the passage planning, including some revised procedures and the accompanying To Do List, while Roy finished the route planning, downloaded a few more satellite images and sorted out some outstanding logistics.

Dinner was an interesting undertaking, since we started to sample some different options for simpler passage meals.

Our day ended with another stunning sunset, but with the bad news that Thailand had detected its first case of the Omicron variant in a US citizen, who had travelled from Spain. Not surprising really, given that this variant had likely spread long before it was detected in South Africa, begging the question: Who was asleep at the wheel?