Other yachts at anchor, certainly had a worse time of it, though, as they pitched and rolled simultaneously. However, It definitely didn’t help matters that Elaine had decided to pick up where she had left off a few months ago with our Red Sea passage planning efforts, as a diversion route, should the need arise, which had her staring into a computer screen as we bounced around. No wonder she felt green! Roy was the wiser one, opting to be dropped off ashore to enjoy a nice long walk.
On his return, Elaine joined him ashore for a coffee and chocolate cake; her second mistake of the day! Once back onboard, keeping everything down for the rest of the day was certainly a challenge! By sunset, though, everything had settled down, in more ways than one, and we enjoyed a peaceful night.
We did, however, wake to a blustery, overcast day yesterday, but, since it wasn’t raining, Elaine settled herself in the cockpit and continued her efforts on the Red Sea passage planning, while Roy finished off the last of the small jobs he had, or so we thought, related to the lithium batteries.
After installing the Charge Disable relay for the solar charge source, the DC power was switched back on, swiftly followed by panic. It was every cruiser’s nightmare; the putrid smell of something electrical burning. As Roy dashed to switch everything off again and checked the battery compartment, Elaine followed the smell, checking everywhere as she progressed.
Upon opening the door to the port forepeak cabin, the plume of smoke hit her in the face, as she screamed to Roy. Not being able to see anything obvious, we both started hauling out the content. Still nothing! Then Roy spotted it; the florescent light had essentially melted.
A few weeks ago, when we were moving stuff around to rebalance Paw Paw, Elaine had reported that the forepeak cabin light was no longer working. Adding it to the list of: “We’ll eventually get to it”, Elaine must have left the switch in the on position and with all our bouncing around, loose wires must have shorted as Roy turned the power back on. What are the chances, but better now than at sea! The exercise, however, also highlighted a feature of our Victron multiplus, which required some re-wiring to facilitate our AC power when the generator was running.
All in all, it was a busy day, with a dash of short-lived stress, leaving us both too tired to be bothered with dealing with dinner onboard, so we dinghied ashore instead. It had been years since we last enjoyed a meal at a restaurant and returned to Paw Paw in the dinghy, in the dark.
Unfortunately, though, while the meal was delicious, it also meant dining with lots of people and, although At the Beach is well ventilated being on the beach, with good social distancing between tables, it was still necessary for Elaine to keep her mask on in between mouthfuls.
While ashore, we also enjoyed a brief chat to the cruisers off Storm Girl and Windwalker, who had spent the first 4-month long full lockdown in Malaysia with us at Rebak Island Resort and Marina.
Today was another day of running errands and completing the last of our Christmas shopping, although the Christmas List didn’t quite pan out as expected, but not before we’d enjoyed breakfast at Dean and Deluca again in Boat Lagoon marina while we waited for the Central Phuket / Floresta mall to open.
Initially wanting a new phone for Christmas, the Apple supplier in Phuket, Studio 7, reneged on their original quotation for the trade-in, dropping it by USD$100 in just a few days. This was, of course, the wrong tactic to try with Roy, so they lost the sale. Instead, Roy stumbled upon a much nicer gift to add to his Christmas List, one he was definitely pleased with.
Then, after Elaine eventually found a store that had all the bits and bobs of stationery she needed, we stopped in at the Village Market mall to pick up a few provisions and returned to Paw Paw, where the extremely tedious task of sanitising everything, ensued.
Both exhausted from our outing, primarily due to the noise, the crowds and the driving, a light dinner, a shower and bed followed in quick succession.
Although we had some rain overnight, it had cleared by this morning, so Roy took the opportunity to enjoy his long walk ashore, while Elaine decked the halls, accompanied by her favourite Christmas tunes and started to wrap what Christmas presents we’d purchased so far, since some are still on Santa’s Sleigh.
We also woke to videos from Keenan of the grandsons learning to fish. Besides the mishap of William flinging his rod into the water by accident, which was thankfully recovered, and Brayden requiring a few attempts before he got the hang of casting, it was Carter who was indeed the natural, taking after his dad who spent entire summer school holidays fishing with friends in his youth.
After lunch, Elaine had every intention of cracking on with more paperwork; resurrecting our Red Sea passage notes; our backup plan, but, instead, an afternoon nap won the day.
This evening, though, while Roy prepared our barbecue dinner, a little Christmas sparkle was added to Paw Paw when the twinkle lights were switched on; anything to lift this mood of uncertainty again!
After collecting our latest deliveries from the Ao Po Grand marina we stopped in at Dean and Deluca in Boat Lagoon marina, as usual, for a coffee and baked delight, before heading to the Central Phuket Floresta mall, where, not only were we delighted to stumble upon a Marks and Spencer’s store, which isn’t in the mall directory and doesn’t come up on any search engines, it had all our favourite Christmas stocking fillers and Elaine found some new pyjamas which she’s desperately needed for some time now. By the time the crowds had started to arrive, though, we’d completed our shopping and made our hasty departure!
Back onboard the usual sanitation exercise ensued, before we dinghied ashore to At the Beach restaurant, where we enjoyed a cold beverage, a chat to Terence in Australia and a delicious dinner, as the sun dipped below the horizon. Being a beautiful, cool evening, we lingered a little longer than intended, ending a busy day with a nice long chat to Elaine’s sister in Ireland.
Taking advantage of the dry, breezy day yesterday, although overcast, Elaine got the first load of washing going straight after she’d prepared a bacon butty breakfast for us, while Roy spent his morning getting a few chores and odd jobs completed. It was lunchtime by the time we were ready to dinghy ashore again, this time for a late lunch of sorts; coffee and chocolate cake at My Beach Resort!
Then, while Elaine continued our Christmas preparations, including creating and posting our Christmas Cards, Roy cooked up a storm in the galley, all to keep us busy until our monthly family Zoom get-together, giving us a very late night to accommodate Keenan and the kids joining the fun and plenty of laughter. It was long past midnight before we crawled into our beds, but happy that we’d spent time with the family, albeit virtually.
With the forecast rain setting in overnight and continuing all day today, we both returned to bed after breakfast, needing a few more hours of sleep after our very late night. Elaine, however, slept a little longer than she’d expected and woke to Roy washing Paw Paw’s decks and topsides in the rain. Feeling refreshed, she then got on with her chores for the day, which included sorting out the dry laundry, cleaning the port aft bilge, stowing our additional provisions and cleaning under the floorboards of both companion ways.
We also enjoyed a chat to Richard, off Charon, who was in northern Thailand with Yim, visiting her family and meeting new grandchildren born in the two years since she was last able to visit.
We always think we’re alone “in this boat” of not being able to hug and kiss our loved ones, but everyone we speak to has had or still has the same heartache; separated from family and friends due to this damn pandemic and just when there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel, we discover it’s an oncoming train! We are just sooooo over it!
So, after a quick breakfast, we weighed anchor and set off into Phang Nga Bay for a fun morning of sailing, accentuated by a baby manta ray leaping out of the water just in front of Paw Paw.
Starting out on a beat, we practiced our tacking with the new, larger headsail, then slowly progressed to a close reach and a beam reach, passing Koh Maithon en route doing 8.2 Kts in 12 Kts of apparent wind; doesn’t get much better than that! We then moved onto a broad reach to practice our jibing, with a run on headsail along, bringing us back to the anchorage around noon, where we found others out enjoying the great sailing conditions too; racing was underway in Chalong Bay.
The exercise was definitely worth it, not only to confirm we hadn’t forgotten how to sail, but our electronic instruments needed a few adjustments after Roy had reset the chartplotter and the autopilot a few days ago. These included our tacking parameters on the autopilot, reestablishing the COG (Course Over Ground) and Heading vectors on the chartplotter and recalibrating the autopilot so it could track again. Also, after watching the videos we took, there’s a few more shackles and blocks that clearly need a bit more lubrication to get rid of all the squeaks!
It was a great morning of sailing and it had been ages since we’d just taken Paw Paw out for some fun in the sun!
Back at anchor, though, as news of the new variant out of South Africa sparked global alarm, a variant that has drawn scrutiny because it has more than 30 mutations of the spike protein, world markets took a tumble, various travel and border restrictions were reintroduced and the realisation of what this could mean to people’s lives moving forward, including our own, didn’t bear thinking about! We decided it was best just to be ostriches and ignore it all for now!
It was close to 1400 when Elaine surfaced and, by then, we both needed to get off Paw Paw. It was the perfect opportunity to enjoy a nice long walk; along the beach of Panwa Bali, up over the hill, along the beach of Ao Yon and back, stopping in at At the Beach to enjoy a well earned cold beverage, before mustering up the will to return to Paw Paw. If it wasn’t for the tide dropping, we may very well have stayed just where we were, in the company of a little bird that merrily chirped and sang to us while we sat and admired the scenery. Too cute!
We were definitely surprised, though, to see just how rough the conditions were in the Ao Yon anchorage, making us feel a little better that we were indeed in the best possible anchorage for the conditions, not to mention the fact that, as the day progressed more yachts arrived in our anchorage, including a few speed boats and fishing boats.
Fortunately, by this morning, the swell had settled and life became bearable again onboard. Over breakfast we enjoyed a lovely long chat to Keenan, who was on a stopover in Boise, Idaho, enjoying an early Thanksgiving dinner at a fancy restaurant, since he was working over the holiday week to get folks to their loved ones, while he spent the time apart from his, like flight crew all over the US. Fortunately the family had had an early Thanksgiving celebration together before Keenan left for work and Brooke and all the grandchildren had been invited to Miss April’s, the twins’ teacher, for Thanksgiving day. A very kind gesture from her indeed.
Afterwards, we both needed a nap to catch up on lost sleep, before Elaine finished the last of her paperwork, for now anyway, and Roy backed up all our devices, given that we’d completed downloading all the satellite views and Navionics charts needed for our Indian Ocean crossing.
Just before bedtime we received a photograph of the sunrise as Keenan flew over Idaho. Oh the joys of our globally dispersed family! The news we definitely didn’t want to hear about, however, was the new variant discovered in South Africa, potentially resulting in another year of separation from our loved ones and adversely impacting our sailing plans!
Afterwards we decided to treat ourselves for a job well done; coffee and chocolate cake ashore at My Beach Resort, followed by a lovely walk along the beach.
Back onboard we both needed a “wee lie-down” before tackling the last of the “big” tasks on our Yacht Projects List; replacing the rope on the trampoline. Unfortunately, as on every yacht, this list is never ending and before the day was out we’d added another item; the port bilge pump had disintegrated since our last check of all the bilge pumps, which wasn’t that long ago, and needed to be replaced! Unbelievable!
We’d definitely chosen the best day for these tasks, though, given the calm water, overcast skies and a lovely cool breeze. However, with more unpleasant weather approaching, by late afternoon the anchorage had started to fill up with an additional 7 yachts arriving before sunset, obviously having read the same weather forecasts as ourselves.
Being an early Sunday morning, we definitely weren’t expecting the heavy traffic we encountered, exacerbated by the pouring rain, making the drive to the hospital for Elaine’s blood work rather treacherous indeed; driving in Thailand is dangerous enough, without the complication of rain!
After a quick pitstop at the hospital, we headed to one of our favourite restaurants for breakfast, Dean and Deluca, at the Boat Lagoon marina. From there we drove north to Grace Pharmacy to collect a months supply of Elaine’s medications and to collect all the medications and over-the-counter remedies to replenish our offshore medical kit, since most items had expired or were simply consumed.
Considering Elaine’s disastrous experience over the past few months with the new treatment plan prescribed by the doctor here in Thailand, not to mention, the exorbitant costs of the medications we’ve incurred, we’re now limiting visits to getting her blood work done and reviewed, given that we also managed to arrange all her medications through Grace Pharmacy, thanks to the relationship Derrek, the Ao Po Grand marina manager, has with the owner and at a far cheaper cost to that which we’ve been charged over the past months.
On our return to the hospital, surprisingly, Elaine’s consultation was in stark contrast to her previous ones, making her wonder whether or not a phone call had possibly been made behind the scenes from her specialist in Singapore. On this occasion, the doctor seemed to already know Elaine had stopped the Xeljanz and that she had returned to her previous treatment plan, with some minor adjustments made by the specialist in Singapore; he essentially had backed off on his insistence of continuing with the new treatment plan he had previously prescribed. Regardless, Elaine relayed the serious concerns expressed by her specialist in Singapore and what had been agreed for moving forward, all of which was accepted and sanctioned by the doctor here. This, of course, has significantly reduced our logistics for our Indian Ocean crossing and opened up numerous other options and destinations for us, COVID-19 permitting, of course.
Feeling relieved and optimistic, we set off to the Central Phuket Festival mall to peruse Elaine’s Christmas present and to give Roy some ideas of what he might like for Christmas. While there, we enjoyed the Christmas music and festivities that were underway, although it was hard to belief another year has rolled by since we’d enjoyed last Christmas on Penang Island, Malaysia, but our outing today certainly helped put us in the Christmas spirit and portrayed some sense of normalcy, nonetheless. It had been months since we were at this mall and the change we witnessed was astronomical; it was absolutely packed with shoppers! Both feeling a little uncomfortable, though, with the crowds, we decided it was best not to linger, returning to Paw Paw by lunchtime, after a quick stop for some fresh produce. However, with the overcast rainy weather we encountered in the morning, neither of us had brought a hat with us for our return dinghy ride under sunnier skies; no problem, “a boer maak a plan”; just use your mask!
After a lunch of sushi, which we hadn’t had since leaving Malaysia, Elaine had barely finished sanitising our purchases when Justine called from the UK. It was perfect timing for a good chinwag, followed by a light dinner, shower and bed, but not before we enjoyed another lovely sunset and a Fire Dance show on the beach. It was a lovely conclusion to an otherwise exhausting day, especially for Elaine, given that we’d walked nearly 10Km.
While Elaine enjoyed a little sleep-in this morning, Roy decided to take advantage of the cooler morning to clean his cabin and head (aka bathroom), something Elaine had been meaning to do for some time, but other activities kept taking priority and today was no exception. After breakfast, while Roy spent the remainder of his day redoing the sealant in Elaine’s head, Elaine set about labelling and stowing all the medications that had been collected yesterday to replenish the offshore medical kit, noting the uses, dose to be taken and clearly marking those that were not for Elaine’s consumption, either due to her allergies, interactions with her conditions or drug interactions with her regular medications, all things we didn’t want to be clueless about in an emergency, especially when all the new packaging was in Thai.
Afterwards she got busy with submitting the latest medical insurance claims and updating the Inventory of Medications onboard for the Maldives, bringing another busy day to a close.
