Unfortunately, as luck would have it, we arrived in Thailand just after the nation had celebrated New Year, Songkran, on 13th April, a holiday that was extended in 2018 to five days, enabling citizens to travel home. In 2020 this holiday was cancelled due to the pandemic, but this year the fatal mistake was made to allow the celebrations, and worse, the associated travel. Within weeks, Thailand was at the start of its worst ever wave, a wave that has continued unabated with daily cases exceeding 20,000 for weeks now. Of course, the spillover took place on Phuket Island too before the island was sealed off, but it appears to have been too little, too late, as daily cases here have continued to rise here too.
So, what does all this mean for us? Well, with only 32 total active cases on the island when we first arrived and everywhere open, we enjoyed a few wonderful weeks of immersing ourselves back into our sailing lifestyle. It was a fabulous breath of fresh air and one we were extremely grateful for, after spending close to 18 months in one or other marina in Malaysia, in and out of lockdowns, as COVID-19 cases fluctuated there.
However, as the weeks have passed, active cases have crept up on Phuket Island, with now in excess of 600 active cases and, with that, came the inevitable lockdown, one that prevents us from re-entering Phuket Province if we leave and, since Elaine’s medical care is only available on Phuket Island, that dictated our circumstance. Compounded by the southwest monsoon, we have, therefore, had no option but to remain in the best anchorage we could find for the conditions; the anchorage off Ao Po Grand marina.
As time has marched on, though, other cruisers have come to the realisation that this anchorage, which we have occupied for weeks on our own, is the preferred anchorage for them as well. Additionally, tourists have discovered the Port of Call restaurant, where, on Friday, Elaine had to confront one foreign tourist who thought it was quite alright to prance around the interior of the restaurant without wearing her mask; you could see the penny drop, though, when Elaine indicated that she was immunocompromised and was “just trying to stay alive!”, the latter in light of her conditions being out of control, yet again, and now on an additional medication in an attempt to suppress her immune system further; an event that is forcing us to be even more careful in our shielding and throwing a major wrench into our circumnavigation plans, never mind increasing our loneliness factor tenfold. The latter has become more prevalent when, on two separate occasions during these past few days, we were unable to socialise with fellow cruisers; the first on Thursday when Richard, off Charon, arranged a get-together lunch at the Port of Call restaurant and the second, although not invited, a get-together on a yacht for all the cruisers in the anchorage, except us. While we assume the reason for the lack of an invitation was based on knowledge of our particular circumstance, it was, nonetheless, very upsetting. It’s Roy, unfortunately, who is suffering the brunt of this isolation as he has no choice but to shield with Elaine to keep her as safe as possible. We did, however, undertake a “dinghy drive-by” visit to Charon on Thursday afternoon and Craig, off Il Sogno, did the same when he visited us briefly on Friday evening after he too had arrived back in the anchorage.
To pass the time, though, we’ve tried to concentrate on what we have versus what we don’t have, albeit very difficult. We’ve enjoyed phone or video calls from family and friends, we’ve walked ashore whenever the weather has permitted and enjoyed a morning coffee at the restaurant. We’ve eaten fruit we don’t recognise and baked treats to sweeten our days. Elaine has watched a few “girlie” movies, while Roy has continued with his lithium battery project and further enhancements to the Anchorage Plus project. We’ve enjoyed sundowners on the foredeck. Elaine also spent Thursday afternoon going through her medical supplies and today prepared a medication summary, including all the medications tried to date, as well as all the dosage changes, thereby providing a trend analysis of treatments, in preparation for her next specialist appointment. Today we enjoyed a dinghy ride to the next bay south of us, where we enjoyed an ice-cream, the perfect treat to compliment the only sunny day we’ve had in ages where we didn’t have a single drop of rain. Throw in the beautiful butterflies seen around the gardens of the marina and flying around Paw Paw at times, and we’re doing our best to get through these tedious, monotonous, lonely, boring days.
We did, however, receive some good news in that there are two islands in the South Indian Ocean where Elaine’s new medication is available, although on two entirely different routes, La ReUnion and Mayotte. This, however, has provided an alternative to being forced to do the Red Sea route in order to get to Europe, the only other destination where this medication is available after leaving Thailand. While options to ship Paw Paw have also been explored and considered, these are definitely no longer cost effective for us, based on recent quotations received and the astronomical increase in shipping costs.
With that said, we’ll end this blog with a quiz: In 2019, how did you recognise a good restaurant in a foreign country? Answer: By the number of locals jammed into it!
Now, in 2021, the same question. Answer: By the number of Grab motorbikes parked outside it (the local food delivery service)!
Nonetheless, we are picking our moments to get off the yacht as best we can and, on Monday, we had a lovely dinghy excursion around the bay, south of the Ao Po Grand marina. We were surprised to find a few local restaurants and an ice-cream shop along the coast, but it was sad to see yet another lovely resort closed, all the normally busy tour boats floating idly, people living on the beaches under makeshift structures and empty touring songthaews sitting on the Ao Po pier, hopeful that someone might need their services.
Afterwards, Elaine continued her efforts of reviewing the latest yacht insurance contracts she had received and Roy jumped in the water to clean Paw Paw’s starboard hull, saildrive and propeller. Learning that Phuket Island had a further 81 daily COVID-19 cases was not the news we wanted to end our day on.
Yesterday we woke to rain again, but this time it continued all day, at times bucketing down, but allowed us to refill our water containers for our next laundry day, whenever that may be; there’s nothing but a soggy mess onboard at the moment!
Apparently it had also rained on and off all night, but Elaine slept through it all; she didn’t hear a thing until she surfaced at around 0900, something that is unheard of these days. She obviously needed her beauty sleep!
By the afternoon she was tired of reviewing yacht insurance contracts and shipping quotations, so she decided a “girlie” movie was the best way to enjoy the rest of her day. Roy managed to get some more of the rubber trim cleaned before the deluge, then spent the rest of his day completing the next enhancements to the Anchor Plus application, ready for review.
The miserable weather eventually cleared by early evening and we enjoyed a surprise video call from Agnes and Bas, off TiSento. It was lovely to catch up and see them back on TiSento after she was shipped safely from Australia to Mallorca.
Today we woke to a beautiful sunny day, allowing Elaine to do her exercises on the foredeck. Unfortunately by the time we’d eaten breakfast the rain had set in again. That meant another “girlie” movie for Elaine and Roy continuing with his coding and testing efforts. We also had a number of yachts return to the anchorage after they’d attempted to enjoy a change of scenery further south, but to no avail. With winds of 20-25 Kts out of the southwest and a huge southerly swell, they all gave up on the notion of pastures new!
There was, however, an unexpected opportunity that presented itself earlier today, which we hope made a small difference in a local family’s life.
For weeks now we’ve seen the same “longtail” drifting past Paw Paw at a distance with a family onboard, all with fishing rods. They spend the entire day on the water come rain or shine, but today we spotted them to Paw Paw’s starboard side, in the pouring rain, soaked to the bone with nothing but a small umbrella, which wasn’t rendering any protection from the elements at all.
On seeing this, it was as if both our minds synchronised at that exact moment, as we both thought about the extra sets of foul weather gear we have onboard, which came with Paw Paw when we purchased her and which we have never used in 10 years.
While Elaine ran below deck to get them, Roy tried to get the fishermen’s attention. Giving up on that idea, we launched the dinghy and Roy took the sets to them. From a distance Elaine could see them donning the bright yellow gear immediately, while Roy received words of gratitude in a language he couldn’t understand, but their faces and gestures said it all.
We trust that this tiny act of kindness brought a ray of sunshine to their lives on yet another miserable, wet, rainy day in Phang Nga Bay, warming their bodies as well as their hearts.
That meant on Friday morning we dinghied ashore for breakfast, followed by a walk around the gardens, then returned to Paw Paw to get a few chores completed in light of the improved weather. Although it was still windy, it was the perfect weather for laundry day. So, while Elaine spent her day stripping beds, airing bedding and getting everything washed and dried, Roy started cleaning the rubber trim around the transom; something that really needed to be done again after our time on the hard.
By early evening we had complete calm, so sundowners were enjoyed on the foredeck, followed by dinner and a movie.
With the sunshine continuing, we enjoyed a day at the swimming pool of the Ao Po Grand marina yesterday, complements of the Marina Manager, Derek. Elaine spent so much time in the water, she had difficulty moving a few muscles this morning. A cool refreshment was followed by lunch before we called it a day and returned to Paw Paw.
Given, the improved weather and being a weekend, the waters around Phuket Island seemed to come to life, albeit briefly; a few more yachts arrived in the anchorage, fishing boats were out again, yachts were seen out sailing on the bay and another yacht carrier had arrived to unload a few “gin” palaces as well as load yachts bound for destinations unknown. This was our entertainment for the rest of the afternoon as we lazed in the cockpit.
Today Roy was up early to clean Paw Paw’s bottom, given that it’s been nearly three weeks of sitting in this anchorage, hunkered down for the bad weather. Elaine, though, spent her day sifting through yacht insurance contracts; a task she detests, albeit an extremely important one.
On the local news front, a candlelit memorial service was held on Bang Tao Beach for the 57 year old Swiss tourist, Nicole Sauvain-Weisskopf, who was found dead, believed murdered, near the Ao Yon Waterfall on Thursday. She had arrived as part of the Phuket Sandbox initiative.
As the sun set on the western horizon, bouquets of white flowers were laid in front of an image of Ms Sauvain-Weisskopf with a circle of white candles placed before it.
Needless to say, while sympathies and condolences have been extended to family and friends, this event has rocked the foundations of the Phuket community, with pledges made by officials to do their best to make “Phuket a safe and pleasant place to live for all life on the island, including tourists who come to visit.” There are obviously grave concerns that this incident will severely affect the Phuket Sandbox initiative. Although nearly 15,000 tourists had visited the island in July as part of this initiative, equivalent to approximately 450 foreign arrivals a day, while a minuscule number compared to the 43,000 daily arrivals before the pandemic, it is still a start to try and recover this tourism-dependent economy, providing hope and a light at the end of the tunnel for the tens of thousands who have lost their livelihoods. In 2019, the country welcomed 40 million foreign arrivals, of which 10 million visited Phuket. With numbers like these, it’s no wonder this economy has been devastated and “ghost towns” are seen up and down the west coast of the island, while resorts and restaurants lay abandoned on the surrounding islands. An incident like this murder was the last thing this island needed, never mind the grief it has caused.
On a more pleasant note, we enjoyed a lovely sunset, the first in weeks and the South African Springboks became the first side in the 130-year history of the British and Irish Lions contest to come from one Test down to win the series 2-1. History repeated itself as Morne Steyn kicked a late penalty to give South Africa the 19-16 match win and the series. Go Bokke!
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!
Roy also continued with his efforts of importing tracks and routes of yachts that have gone before us and successfully completed that activity today.
Since we’ve only scratched the surface of what still needs to be done, though, it’ll be a good few weeks before we can say we’ve completed this planning exercise, but it’s certainly keeping us occupied and busy. Probably a good thing, given that the miserable weather returned today, not to mention the fact that we woke to the news of more restrictions on Phuket Island. In essence, we may as well be back in lockdown as there’s precious little to do for fun at the moment regardless of the weather conditions.
The 32 new local infections, excluding 2 more Phuket Sandbox arrivals testing positive for COVID-19 and 3 new patients brought back to the island for treatment under the “Bring Phuket People Home” campaign, brought the total number of new local infections on the island in the past seven days to 254, with 382 people now under medical care or supervision. This prompted the Phuket officials to ban the sale and consumption of alcohol in all restaurants again and reinstate the ban on all “social activities”, the latter specified as “all people are to refrain from organizing parties, celebrations, and festive events”. However, traditional ceremonies that cannot be postponed, such as funerals, ordinations, marriage and religious or merit-making ceremonies, may be held with permission and must comply with all COVID-19 prevention measures. We also learnt that an entire village a few kilometres to the north of our anchorage was placed under a complete lockdown, with no access in or out.
This order was posted at 10:13pm last night; just 1 hour and 47 minutes before it came into effect. Restrictions are literally changing by the hour now! A tad disconcerting as we have absolutely no idea what we may awaken to next!
It was, however, the weather that put pay to our plans of dinghying ashore to enjoy breakfast at the Port of Call restaurant in the Ao Po Grand marina, as a storm packing winds in excess of 37 Kts, accompanied by lashing rain, passed over us, prompting us to move further into the bay to get more protection. We were satisfied with our decision when the second storm of the day only topped 24 Kts, a considerable improvement, although it too was accompanied by torrential rain and visibility of less than 50 metres. This, of course, occurred just as we’d thought of heading ashore for a morning coffee in lieu of our breakfast. At this point we gave up and resigned ourselves to a day onboard. Fortunately the remainder of the day was dry and calmer after a wild and woolly morning, allowing Roy to pop ashore briefly to dispose off our garbage and visit the marina office in the hope that his latest packages had been delivered, but to no avail, although the courier had called earlier for directions. A call from Richard, off Charon, as well as a gluten-free chocolate and orange cake which Elaine baked, added cheer to the otherwise dull, overcast day. Our entertainment, however, arrived in the form of a fisherman dragging an anchor across the seabed, peeking our interest immediately, having ended up on a reef after previously witnessing this practice. Fortunately he was a considerable distance off to our port side, but we were, nonetheless, surprised at how many fishing pods he lifted onto his “longtail”, returned the smaller fish to the water, kept the bigger ones and putted around to some distance off our stern before dropping all five pods again, with no flag to indicate they were even there. Of course, we suddenly realised that the seabeds are probably scattered with these things and here we are anchoring amongst them, unknowingly.
Our day ended the way it started; somewhat chaotic, as Roy was in the middle of preparing dinner when the courier called again to say the marina office was closed and that he had our delivery.
So, switch off the gas, lower the dinghy, head ashore, collect our new lithium batteries and return at dusk, just in time to be eaten by the mosquitoes. Then, given that we didn’t want to leave the packages in the cockpit overnight because it was definitely sure to rain, the whole “sanitise and stow” routine was conducted in the dark with insect repellent coils to help keep the mossies at bay. By now dinner was somewhat ruined, but needs must!
After a quiet, peaceful night, though, with only light rain during the early hours of the morning, we woke to the sun trying to break through, so we jumped at the opportunity to dinghy ashore for breakfast. We were delighted to have Derek, the Marina Manager, join us, before returning to Paw Paw to continue our passage planning exercise. Given that it rained on and off for the rest of the day, it was the perfect time to undertake this task.
Today was a “rinse and repeat” of yesterday, with rain showers passing over throughout the day, while we continued with our passage planning efforts, although we did re-lay our anchor chain, as it was hooked around something; probably one of those large fishing pods.
A surprise phone call from Maria, off Cattiva, was a wonderful start to the day and back-to-back calls from Elaine’s sister, Dianne, and then from Justine was a lovely way to seal another dull, overcast, windy, rainy day. We’d hoped that with the number of fishing boats that were back out on the water earlier in the day, we were about to get a break in the weather, but it was not to be.
We were intrigued, however, to read about the conservation efforts underway in Thailand to restore the tiger population, following the “Hua Hin Declaration on Tiger Conservation”, established in 2011, resulting in at least 177 Indochinese tigers now roaming in the wild, an increase of 17 in the past year. This news was revealed in celebration of International Tiger Day. Efforts continue, though, to conserve tiger habitats and natural resources in order to maintain their population. Thailand is among 13 countries participating in the declaration’s conservation programme that aimed to double the tiger population by 2022. As such, patrols have been increased in forest reserves, awareness of the programme has been raised and cooperation forged with communities, efforts which have lead to the arrests of 36 big cat poachers in parks between 2019 and 2021. Great progress indeed! Now if Thailand can just get their COVID-19 situation back under control, we’ll rest easier and be able to get back to our sailing! Grrrrr!
Reports also indicated that all prisoners released on parole will first take part in a training programme, known as “Khok Nong Na”, an agricultural model based on the New Theory of Agriculture and the Sufficiency Economy philosophy developed by His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the father of the current King, who passed away in 2016.
Apparently criteria exist for who is not eligible to receive a royal pardon, including prisoners who are jailed for repeated crimes, those who have not behaved while serving their sentences, prisoners convicted in major drug cases and prisoners who faced a death sentence, but were granted a royal reprieve. However, we learnt that this royal decree also added new rules that allow elderly inmates who are ill, to become eligible to receive the royal pardon. Those now eligible are prisoners 60 years old and older who have been receiving treatment for at least a year for paralysis, dementia, brain disorders, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, aplastic anaemia or chronic liver failure.
For us, yesterday, although some wind and rain had arrived early morning, it was a chance to head ashore before the worst of the bad weather arrived and forecast to continue for some time.
After enjoying a coffee and delicious pancakes, beautifully presented, at the Port of Call restaurant, Roy took a nice long walk, while Elaine enjoyed a stroll around the gardens. She was delighted to find all the flowers in full bloom, including a variety of stunning orchids. Most of the flowers were not much bigger than her finger nail, but bloomed in abundance, creating a kaleidoscope of colour around the marina. By the time we returned to Paw Paw, however, the bad weather had arrived with vengeance, particularly the wind which reached in excess of 36 Kts at one point. Fortunately it all calmed down by late evening to afford us a good night’s sleep.
The bad news for the day was that 13 people in a workers’ camp in Patong had tested positive for COVID-19, adding to the record 38 local infections in one day, not including 2 Sandbox arrivals who were also recorded as testing positive, bringing the total number of new local infections on the island in the past seven days to 146, creating a trend which was definitely moving in the wrong direction and has resulted in a cumulative total of 229 people being under medical care or supervision on the island. This is considerably higher than the 32 active cases that were on the island around 12 June, even with 69% of Phuket’s residents fully vaccinated. Then hearing from Richard, off Charon, that someone in Yacht Haven marina had tested positive, left us feeling better about our decision to stay where we were, away from the madding crowd, albeit somewhat lonely.
Today we woke to a very windy, squally day, with winds reaching up to 30 Kts at times, accompanied by torrential rain, but we were collecting rain water again, although Roy took the opportunity to run the watermaker anyway, since we had to run the generator for a while, due to the overcast conditions. He had a busy morning, though, catching up on all his yacht chores and a few smaller yacht projects, including topping up the battery water, removing and cleaning both stern stainless steel u-bolt eyes, replacing the one-way value on the generator’s fuel line, as it was still crocking from time to time and resealed the fuel tank breather vent on the port side, as well as enjoyed a brief chat to Craig off Il Sogno. The good news of the day was that the latest enhancements to the Anchor Plus application were approved and have been released to the Apple store. The application is now available in Spanish and Dutch. Many thanks to our able helpers, Ronnie and Babbie, off Campechano and Bas and Agnes, off TiSento; your input was invaluable and greatly appreciated.
Elaine, on the other hand, returned to her passage planning activities after her daily chores were completed, but this was interrupted by a much needed afternoon nap.
