We left Langkawia in Malaysia in late November and headed up through the Malacca Straits to the Islands of Thailand. Cleared in at Phuket and proceeded to haul out the boat for routine antifouling and other maintenance work including repair to the bow damage sustained after a wee ramming incident off the coast of Java.
Thailand, was great, we hauled in a dirty local yard up the river in Phuket Town, No nice yacht friendly travel lift here, you get winched out on a rail platform, and shunted about the yard on rails, rocking from side to side in the chocks and cradle which was (hopefully) correctly adjusted by divers as the tide drops you on to the trolley. It certainly works great for huge wooden fish boats but a little disconcerting for a yacht with a 6 foot keel.
We spent six weeks in the yard all told, going to and fro each day on our rented motor scooter to a one room apartment we rented in downtown Phuket. Ate in the local roadside shacks, drank local beer, hired Thai workers, spent hours trying to get decent materials, worked like a dog, got very proficient at weaving the scooter in and out of the mad traffic (real scary at first) and spent a ton of money.
The Thai labour was reasonably inexpensive so we did a complete new epoxy barrier coating on the hull and built a hard dodger to replace our tired canvas one along with all the other re fit work. 12 hour days including Christmas day. An experience, yes, but we were very happy when we were finished and rocking and rolling down the slipway and afloat again.
After a few days in the local anchorage recovering and getting our cruising legs again, we headed out to explore the inlets and islands of Phang Nga bay . A wonderful cruising area. After a week or so we dropped the hook in Ao Nang Bay near Krabi. This is the renowned rock climbing vacation area. We could have our sundowners in the cockpit and gaze up at the huge limestone walls surrounding the bay. Payback time for the hell of the haul out. Peter gets to go climbing!!
We spent four weeks in all in the area, going ashore in the dinghy each day, met with other rock climbers at the beach restaurants, the hike off down the beach to one of the many different walls, do a few pitches, move somewhere else out of the sun, a few more pitches and back to the beach for a nice cold one. I had a little trouble at first finding climbing partners who were as unfit as I was but after a week or so I was back into it, and also teamed up with some young Canadian climbers on winter vacation there. Thank you Mat for dragging me up the harder stuff. At the end of the time there I was managing to lead the 5B,s/C,s. Everything is beyond the vertical here so arm and finger strength is all important. Winch muscles don’t count.
We were sad to leave the area but the season was moving on so we took our leave, headed back Phukhet to check out and sail on back to Langkawia to start the long trek to the Philippines.
We had originally planned to return to Canada by way of Borneo, The Philippines, Japan and the Aleutians Islands and Alaska, but Joyce decided that she wanted to go see a lion, in a game park somewhere in Africa. Somehow, propping the bar in the Langkawia Yacht Club she managed to convince the skipper of this tub that it might be nice. Yes, I know, I should have said a definite NO.
SOOO we re provisioned for four months, hastily collected what Indian Ocean pilots, guides etc we could find, did the last minute scamper around gathering the last widgets and stuffing them into every last crevice on board to clear out of Malasia on the end of the dying North East Monsoon, the boat headed West again. Destination Chagos Archipelago, permit for Chagos in hand, we were off on our 2,000 miles passage in the middle of the Indian Ocean.