Buying a boat?

While staying at the marina where the school is based I found a boat that would take me around the world. It already has been with the current owners and they were prepping it for a more difficult circumnavigation via Cape Horn Africa.  Unfortunately for them the husband now has issues that probably preclude him from realizing that dream so SY Rolling Home was for sale. After several afternoons aboard talking with the owners and having them show me everything about the boat, a deal was struck. As always contingent on inspections. But if everything checks out another fork in the road will be crossed. A couple of the guys from the sailing school are eager to upgrade their Yachtmaster Offshore to Ocean status and have agreed to help me get started if the sale goes thru. A key feature of this boat from me is the dive compressor and tank racks already installed. I’m sure the boat will have a todo list after the inspections, as well as the todo list for the dive stuff, but this boat is really a deep blue water cruiser that can sail anywhere. Stay tuned!

The beginning of a lot of sailing

After a week of just sailing around Langkawi doing little navigation drills such as finding your way through tight areas and not grounding the boat, setting a course to steer to a mark you couldn’t see without being able to change course and be within a certain distance of it, and finding a channel at night based on depth contour lines off the chart and another week of classroom theory, it was decided we should really do a bit a sailing since that’s what we were here for. We all received an email Sunday giving us Latitudes and Longitudes for which we should plan our individual bit of the trip as the boat captain. Mine turned out to be going from Penang to Langkawi at night. The plan was to do all this in 60 hours. We did a continuous 2 legs over 36 hours around a Malaysian Navy Base at the edge of Malaysia that we rounded. As we rounded the Navy base we got a call on the VHF radio asking very nicely but firmly who were we and what were we doing out here from a local Navy Frigate.  It certainly broke up the monotony.  Then it was onto Penang.  Of course we had to go around to the shallow side at low tide and under a few bridges to make sure we were wide awake before ending  the two legs. That gave us 10 hours of rest before we set off for a 14 journey back. Did anyone know Penang is a diurnal tidal region? That means after 10 hours your right back in the low tide zone. This ensured we would be coming out of an area in Penang that is very busy with commercial shipping at low tide. Did I mention the areas out of the shipping channel are very shallow? You don’t want to make things too easy. The tricky bit around Penang turned out to be finding where to exit the navigation channel so we could split the 2 islands up North. It would make for a bad night if you ran onto them. We had pretty stiff winds all the way back, had the wind gauge reading 23 knots at one point.  A light force 6.

At least the boat moved fast. Amazingly enough I managed to set the course correctly and we split the two islands and upon arrival in Langkawi were about .2 miles from where I had actually planned on arriving. Happy, smiling and exhausted we pulled into the Marina. After the boat was put away I think everyone crashed out and slept all day. Heroic quantities of beer were consumed by one and all that night which put us all back to sleep early. Sometimes the best scenery in life is what you see inside your eyelids. Adieu.

 

Return to Langkawi

A lovely week was had sailing around the East coast of Phuket and the West mainland of Thailand sheltered by Phuket.

A very nice cave around Ao Nang was explored. It feels so good to be able to just walk sometimes.

The view from the upper chambers of the cave, made for a bit of an uphill climb. The stone formations in that part of Thailand really are amazing. It’s so great to be able to sail amongst them with so few people. The tourists from land based travel all get bundled up into the same locations like cattle in a meat packing plant and the rest of the places are virtually empty.

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

But as usual with this trip the fun part has to end

We set off for quite a long sail in the open ocean. The original plan was to stop at the 2 islands about halfway down the trip but the wind made it such that we would have had to add about 5 hours of sailing to make that anchorage so I got to choose to press on. Ah, forgot to mention this was my first long passage as the captain. First person chosen on the course – lucky me. After leaving immigration in Chalong Thailand where the red line starts we sailed all day and night down to Ko Lipe which is just a bit NW of Langkawi. I did get to hand the boat over to one of the other guys for the leg down to Ko Lipe which was nice as I was absolutely spent. Night sailing in the open ocean was nice although a bit testing with the waves hitting from the sides in a sloppy sea. We anchored in Ko Lipe around 7am after a 22 hour sail. I think everyone slept pretty well at that point.

Getting out was a bit challenging as the channel funneled into a narrow gap between some rocks that required some careful navigation planning, but I’m still here writing about so it couldn’t have been too hard. After that it was just a slog into Langkawi, clear immigration, fix the boat up and clean. Having a well earned 2 days off before the next classroom session begins.

Malaysia to Thailand by sailboat

Theory classes although needed just aren’t too exciting. However the prospect of long distance and night sailing; which  has always been something I’ve wanted to do; was. The Langkawi to North Phuket trip is about 240 miles, so a lot of new things were on the horizon for me.

Home base in Langkawi where all the boats get parked. After checking out of immigration I was officially an illegal everywhere and officially admitted to a country no where. Same as being on a plane for an international trip but you don’t think about it because you can’t get off. Kind of an odd feeling knowing for three days you can come and go from the boat but only as an illegal border crossing. Definitely have to try that!

Finally getting in some offshore sailing in on the first night. The first of many firsts on this trip.

For all of you laughing that I’m asleep at the wheel a pox on your house! The camera flash was blinding in the dark so the eyes closed were planned. Thats my story and I’m sticking to it. 🙂 Nothing went bump in the night for which I was very happy, all the lights you wind up seeing on the ocean only a few have navigational meaning but you better sort those out. The hazard buoys are easy in the daytime but figuring out the flashing sequence at night which identifies them turned out to be hard sometimes. Is that a blinking light onshore from someones building or a navigation signal. Ugh!

Ah an illegal alien in Thailand at last! Must be time for congratulatory beer.

Thats it! Right up there a little Thai place serving food and most importantly ice cold beer. 🙂 Managed to sail up to Phuket the next day and check-in to become legal again. Sailing around Phuket was a bit of a twilight zone experience as I knew where things were from the dive boats but this time I had to navigate. I’ll save the Phuket bits for the next entry as I’ll be sailing around here for another week or so.

 

Sometimes the little things in life surprise you

The sailing school uses the owners home as their classroom when we’re not living on the boat. This in a rural part of the island with no bushinesses nearby except for this one new family restaurant that just opened up walking distance from the classroom. The first day we showed up it was so heartwarming. They couldn’t believe Westerners were going to eat there. Pictures all around were required. (Mostly to show to all the friends and family 🙂 )

It’s run by a Islamic Thai family and the food is great. Better than I get in town near where I wound up staying land based for the week. Every day they are so happy to see us and just have such genuine happiness and excitement that we keep coming back and want to eat home cooking.

 

It took a day to convince them we really could eat food with some zing in it, but since then it comes out “Thai” style every day. What a difference between the friendliness we found there and the normal faux smiles you get in eateries in most places. All good things must come to a pass though, the classroom chunk is over for now.

Time to move back on a boat and start sailing to Thailand! I’m excited first long distance sailing at night will happen on this trip.

The first week of sailing

Sailing out to the start line at the Langkawi Regatta. Showed up for my class and the school had entered a boat (the one I was on) in an International sailing race.

Needless to say we were in one of the slow classes and mostly came in at the end of the pack, although we did manage a third place in one of the 7 races.

They over booked the class (I suspect they always do) but that meant one person got to sleep on deck during the night. This year the rainy season has run late so that meant several nights in the rain under a tarp covering the deck. Not the most lux accommodation I assure you. All is good I have a few days off on land to dry out and remember what it’s like to sleep on a bed before the first Malaysia to Thailand passage. Hopefully I’ll sleep inside on that one 🙂

On the move again

Ready for yet another long deep solo deco dive

One thing here has really made the diving special and that was the freedom to solo dive at my own pace without dive shop mandated restrictions. As a result I was able to get in dives as long as 2hours 20+ minutes, and routinely do 55M depth dives. Deeper on air just isn’t advisable due to the higher partial pressures of O2 the body is subjected to that makes it possible to incur blackouts and drown. Being able to move along at your own pace and look at things in close detail is a rare thing and it was awesome!

Butit’s time for a new chapter so it’s off to Malaysia via Thailand to try my hand at a series of sailing courses that will mostly having me live aboard a series of sailboats.

 

Definitely going to miss this view as my 8AM coffee drinking horizon.

Some of the creatures regularly found on my dives, that moved slow enough to let me catch the with my camera. An area I’m going to have to get better at…sigh. Met some wonderful people, and look forward to returning someday for more.

 

Lazy days in the Philippines

My morning view. Typical days weather, cloudy maybe rain during the day for 20  minutes but mostly sunny. Usually out for the 8AM dive with a typical run time of 65 minutes with a max depth of 50M. Have run as long as 74 minutes and as deep as 63M, but since the dive boat really wants a max dive time of 70 minutes that has been the gating item. They have been very kind to support my beyond recreational limits diving and giving me 2 tanks for the price of one. Mostly cooking meals in my bungalow, but when I’m lazy have been eating out. managed to rent the exact same model of scooter I had in Thailand, so getting around is easy. This is really the vacation I’ve needed for a long time.

Turtles are abundant here, see at least 2-3 on every dive, sometimes more. Rescued one this week that was tangled in fishing line. Really bothers me how much fishing debris is on the ocean floor. Makes me wonder how many animals die in the non-dive sites every day due to this problem.

These are some of the little creatures found around here, hard to find but stunning when you do.

These Spanish Dancers are always over a foot long (.3M) around here. Incredible! I have never seen them any where else in the world. They are the largest of all the Nudibranch family species. I’ve seen them in Red/Yellow, Blue/Yellow, and Brown/White so far. I’m truly thrilled when I see one. I’ll try to get another post or two up this month, the Internet connection I have is a bit lame. Getting mentally prepared for my Commercial Captain’s course in Malaysia. That will be a real work and the opposite of my days here.

Loy Krathong

From Wikipedia:

The name could be translated as “to float a basket”, and comes from the tradition of making krathong or buoyant, decorated baskets, which are then floated on a river.

Loi Krathong takes place on the evening of the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar; hence, the exact date of the festival changes every year. In the Western calendar this usually falls in the month of November. In 2015 it was celebrated on November 25th; in 2016 it was celebrated on November 14th.

The Krathongs are generally made from biodegradable materials and float away. People often put a coin or two, and other things inside. Really the nicest celebration of the year I find in Thailand. I expect next year everything to be back at full throttle. This year was still muted in respect to the former kings funeral. Hard to describe why it’s such an amazing evening every time, it’s one of those things that one needs to experience as words can’t seem to capture all of it. At least not by me. My time in Thailand for this trip is soon to end. Next stop Philippines.

The sun shines!

The sun has come out. Trying to get out at this beach for a good swim and body surfing every day when I’m not doing dive related activities. Seems there’s something to do most days now. Traffic is picking up around town, you can feel the holiday busy season starting to emerge. Have some nice dives arranged over the next 2 weeks, and the it’s time to move on. Boy I really miss the snow in Colorado right now… guess I’l just have to suffer here at the beach.