Fishing & Visa run

We need to take the boat out of Thailand (Thai visa rules for boats) and to renew our Visa's. Langkawi is             250km South, in Malaysia, so we are off on Monday. We will take a few days and visit some islands on the way.
Rob has chatted to some fisherman and has now purchased a 'whistler', it floats on top of the water and attracts the fish. Well we will put it to the test! Our NZ friends left yesterday and have caught 2 Tuna already! We have to match that at least.

  The 'Whistler'

Gibbon Rehabilitation project

Yesterday we took the boys to visit the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project. www.gibbonproject.org.
This amazing project rescues Gibbons (they are apes not monkeys) and rehabilitates them for the wild. Apes learn what to eat from their mothers. Baby's are carried by the Mom for 2 years. They can only go back into nature as a family so the Project starts out as a 'courting' agency as they try to pair them.  They pair for life and are apparently very fussy!
For every one Gibbon that ends up on the street for tourists to photograph, about 7 die. The mother is shot and falls with the baby, that may die from the fall. If so they shoot another.

We could only see the apes that will never be put back in the wild for various reasons. This chap was released and came back 4 times, so they decided to let him stay.

 

Nai Harn Beach

This is a Beach in the south of Phuket. Benjamin took the photo that I have used at the top of the Blog. Its a nice quiet bay with no jet ski's carving up the water around us.

We met a super NZ couple on sy 'Nowadays' Grant and Glynis Rowe, and they took us on their morning walk which is up to the view point. Wonderful views of the bay up there and a good walk helps to get the blood flowing.

Last night we all went to local eatery for a buffet dinner where you cook the food on your own hot pot. The metal dome has a trough around it so as you fry the meat on the top the juices run into a broth in the trough. The dome is heated by a very hot brick under it. Green leaves, mushroom, prawns, crab, tofu are all simmered in the broth which can then be drunk as a soup. It is always a chatty way of eating, finished off with coconut ice-cream and water melon. All this for Bht 140.00 (R35.00).

Benjamin and Raphael having fun.

Boat building

Just past the bridge we saw this scene of old and new. Quite a project!

Sarasin Bridge

Sarasin Bridge is a newly constructed bridge connecting Phuket Island with the mainland of Thailand. This new bridge is higher than the old one which means that, to the envy of all our sailing buddies, we can go under the bridge which has a 12m clearance. 

The other nice feature of this bridge is that instead of removing the old one, they just took the center out and then built it up to the same height as the road bridge. It serves as a walking path over the river.

There is a sand bank at the exit into the Andaman sea, but we passed over it with no problem as we only have a 3 foot draft. This is photographed from the sea side.

 From here we headed south to Nai Harn beach, our first over night stop.

Note the calm seas!

Ko Panak Hong

Robert's son Benjamin and Raphael (Ben's cousin) are here for 10 days. If wonderful to have them here.
We headed North to Ko Panak to show them the hongs. After watching some folk appear out of a cave we decided to investigate.
Torch in hand we landed on the beach and followed the foot steps into the cave. Further in, the light vanished as we turned a corner.... do we go on, how long is the dark tunnel, we have to walk through water, how deep does it get??? After some encouragement from Rob we walked on and very soon saw light and came out into a big Hong with sheer cliffs all around us.
The first photo is Ben and I standing in front of the cave exit into the Hong. This is all under water at high tide. The other photo is Ben standing in the middle of the hong.
Its so grand inside, you feel quite dwarfed.

Tonic water?

Tonic water has become very rare on the island.....in fact its nowhere to be found.
It seems the factory was flooded with the Bankok floods and so production stopped. We have not found Tonic water for my Gin & Tonics since December. All bars and restaurants just say 'no have'.
A friend told us that she was at a fund raising dinner where 3 Tonic waters were on auction! People went mad to get them. If you do find one its sold at Baht 100 (R25) instead of Baht 20.

The Bankok floods had a big impact on what was in the stores here in December. Many shops had signs up apologizing for the empty shelves. The trucks could not get through to do deliveries even if they had stock. All seems back to normal now with most things.

Titan Scorpion fish

Russ took this photo of Rob and I (in the middle) doing our buddy breathing lesson with Natasha and Malcolm  under water.

This is one of the amazing fish we saw while diving. Its a Titan Scorpion fish and it looks just like a rock. Russ and Malcolm are real pro's with their underwater photography. Its not easy to get such good photos while 'floating'.

No more mooring balls!!

The second night at Bungalo Bay, Racha Yai was not pleasant. The wind got up to 26 knotts but we went to sleep with the knowledge that the mooring ball had held fine the first night. At 4 in the morning we both heard a thud and thought something had bumped the boat. Rob went out and shouted to me 'were loose' The buoy had broken off at the base of the rope, 7m down. Rob disconnected the rope (thick good rope) and thew it overboard. It must have chaffed though. Sorry to the vessel that connects with that rope.

He started the motors and we found another mooring ball. Doing this in the dark it no fun. I needed three hands, one for the torch, one for the stick to pick up the rope attached to the mooring ball, and one hand to thread our ropes through the mooring ball ropes. So I sacrificed the torch and ended up with our rope twisted around one of the stanchions of the boat, these are not made to hold 19 Tons of boat! All the pressure was on this. Rob came down and pulled the boat forward while I undid the rope and corrected things. Robs fingers were numb for a while after that.
So by 4.30 am we were tied up again, but I did not trust the situation and stayed on watch till 7am when we left and headed back to Phuket.

We have a friend here who found his yacht on the rocks after a buoy broke. And another friend told us of his nightmare when a big live-aboard boat broke off its buoy and floated back bumping his boat as it went by. Luckily neither of these boats was badly damaged. The scary thought is that we were off our boat for 3 hours, if it had happened then........ our angels were looking after us!

We will now only use our anchor!

Racha Yai

On Monday we headed to an island south of Phuket called Racha Yai. Its popular for snorkeling and diving. We tied up on a buoy as anchoring is discouraged because of coral beds.

Its another stunning beach which is full of day tourists, but is peaceful after 4pm when they all go home. With the N easterly winds blowing at night this was a bumpy spot. 

Russ and family had a super 5 days of diving here and we came to visit them on their last day as you can't dive for 24 hrs before flying. Spent a nice time walking on the island and watching the Water Buffalo and big Water Monitors.