Thailand Feb 2020
Thailand! The land of amazing food and islands.
We leave Langkawi and head up to Thailand. Langkawi to the first Thai island is a day sail, and we anchor down in Koh Lipe a short sail later. And boy are we in Thailand immediately. Clearly a popular party day island, DJ on the beach and a beach bar, life is lovely. Unlike most other countries where you need to go from one check in port to another, Thailand allows you a flexible 3-5 days to travel from Langkawi to Phuket, which allows you to explore these beautiful islands (Koh) along the way. We are travelling with our friends Waterhorse, and we are all keen to get into the water and go for a dive. The waters of the Malacca Straits are a beautiful green, but milky and we haven’t been able to get in the water for a few months now.
First thing the next day we head up to the next island, a know dive site and in we go. Very remote, nice and clear and we all have a great dive at Koh Rok Nok.
Diving into Phuket. Adventure 88
The following day we head off further north towards Phuket and anchor of Phi Phi Island. The anchorage is crazy busy with tour boats and tourists and we head into shore for dinner, and there are hundreds of stalls and cafes all serving amazing smelling food. Spoilt for choice, we are in Thai food heaven.
Sailing Phuket and the Phi Phi Islands! Adventure 89
We officially check into Thailand the following day, all the official offices are in one spot and we are done in 30 minutes – the most efficient check in ever!
We explore Phuket and sail around to lots of different anchorages as we prepare to say goodbye to Waterhorse who are heading off to Sri Lanka, as we prepare to head back to Langkawi to leave the boat for 6 months to work in Adelaide.
We head back around Phuket and notice some big cracks have developed in our solar supports/dinghy davits. After some seriously creative rope tying to support the structure, we frantically contact a marina and book in to see if we can organise stainless steel welding.
Amazing, within a few days, all cracks are beautifully welded and for extra security we have added 2 more diagonal supports to our structure, which is now starting to resemble a spider’s web. Job done, we check out of Phuket and head back to Phi Phi island for one last Thai meal.
On the way back down we stop at the famous Emerald Cave, where you can swim through a cave into a beautiful cavern. We wait patiently for a break in the tourist boats and then swim in and have the place to ourselves for about 4 minutes. Still, very pretty
Emerald Cave Snorkelling! Adventure 91
For our final day in Thailand, we head back to Koh Lipe, and have a terrible night of weather, where we up anchor at 11pm as the wind has swung and many other boats in the anchorage are dragging. It’s a wild couple of hours, but eventually we head back up to another location and pick up a mooring that we had used earlier in the day.
Bad Anchoring Decisions Adventure 92
And that’s it, we are back in Langkawi prepping to leave the boat for 6 months (or so we thought)
…………
And then COVID happened