Thailand law
requires that we take our boat out of their country every six months – or,
sometimes, once a year if the boat is in a marina (which CanKata was). So our
time was up in November.
We left Phuket for
Langkawi, Malaysia on November 5. We stopped at Phi Phi Le, Ko Rok Nok and Tarutao
on our way there. These anchorages provided some spectacular views of the
skies, and we even managed to sail some of the way (not always easy on this
route).
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| View from Phi Phi Le |
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| High on our "favourite" list: Ko Rok Nok |
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| View from Tarutao |
The dark, early
morning sky was amazing: Venus rising in the east, Pluto setting in the west,
and Orion directly above us, with the brightest star Sirius close to Orion. The
early night sky was pretty active: one night we counted seven satellites.
On November 8th
we arrived in Kuah, Langkawi – a safe but dirtied-water harbor – and
immediately got to work buying a variety of boat parts and provisions that we
can’t get in Thailand, like good powdered milk and affordable feta cheese. We
met up with old friends (Tigger) and made some new ones (Emelia and Vamp) and
enjoyed using the services of Surin, whose office is based right near the
dinghy dock. She calls herself a “mini chandlery” and works hard to help you
get what you need.
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| There's been lots of development near the dinghy dock in Kuah. Even Karaoke! |
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| The chandlery didn't have much of what we needed. |
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| The view from Kuah: a storm developing in the west at sunset. |
We gave away the
last of our books when in Kuah. Our shelves now have mostly reference books and
cruising guides and duplicate flags of the Maldives. We both now have Kindle
book readers and love them. They don’t smell musty, they don’t have little
spider mites, and hundreds of books weigh next to nothing. The batteries last
for days and days. Yes, we highly recommend them to our fellow sailors.
On November 20th,
with all the stuff we needed safely stowed away and all our books with new
homes, we started our journey back to Thailand. “See you in 2018” was our
farewell message to Tigger and Emelia. We will probably meet up with Vamp again
in Thailand.
The winds suggested
that we take a different route home. That’s the beauty of the trip between
Phuket and Langkawi – lots of islands to pick from, lots of variety for route
planning. We stopped at Tarutao North, Ko Talibong, Ko Lanta Yai (where we
relaxed an extra day), and at Monkey Beach, Phi Phi Don (where we played with a
wee dolphin). Between Talibong and Lanta, we hardly motored at all. And the
amazing thing about both going and coming: it didn’t rain enough to be a
bother, but it rained enough to clean our canvas and allow us to catch some
water for our tank. It tastes so much better than our reverse-osmosis water!
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| View from Talibong, after this system rained on us. |
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| View from Talibong after the sun set a little lower. |
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| View from Ko Lanta Yai |
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| Another view from Ko Lanta Yai, a little later. See the green? |
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| Another view from Ko Lanta the next night: a stark difference. |
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| Darrel and the dolphin at Phi Phi Don |
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| Loretta petting the dolphin at Phi Phi Don. |
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| The morning sky over Phi Phi Don |
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| CanKata heading home to Phuket |
Sailing in clean
water allows me another treat: doing laundry in salt water. It always gives me
a thrill to practice water conservation. My super-duper $80 washer/spinner
squeezes all the salt water out, and then all I need is one rinse in fresh,
another good spin, a few hours hanging in the breeze and sun, and Voila –
spring-smelling laundry with just a small tub of fresh water.
One small
frustration we had on our journey was our inability to use our ham radio for
emails – something that will be critical for us when we leave Thailand in
February. We can’t figure out if the problem is related to software, hardware,
or uncooperative air waves. We are still working on a resolution and MUST get
this solved before we leave.
We had a visitor on
board for most of our journey: a little gecko. We hardly saw it, but often saw
a little piece of black and white poo which is the calling card of the gecko.
We haven’t seen any evidence for a few days now, and wonder if it went ashore
at Monkey Beach. Too bad – we didn’t
have one mosquito aboard while it was here.
So good-bye gecko,
good-bye books, and good-bye Malaysia. “See you in 2018”, Langkawi, or maybe
earlier if we need to change our route once again. One never knows for sure.
P.S. I am seeing
regular updates on Facebook about our many Aussie sailing friends who are arriving
home safely from S.E. Asia. Well done, mates!
