A need for land and for sea

Recently, we have blogged about the joy of life on land in Phuket (made so interesting with people contact in the busy towns) and in the glorious natural environment of the uninhabited surrounding islands. Sailing in these sheltered areas in this SW monsoon season is so easy: protection from storms which thus provide little challenge; safe anchorage to be found everywhere and Phuket island offers several marinas for berthing the boat… and the opportunity to be idle and pampered with shore power, shore water and easy access.

However, we have tried to be more active than idle. Chatting to others and watching the behaviour of the many cruisers here, it is clear that there is a very definite risk of losing confidence in yourself and your boat and have your sailing skills deteriorate if you languish too long off the “real” sea and so it is necessary to put yourself out there and sail! On top of that, after a while we find that we miss the beauty and isolation of the sea.

Hence our choice to again sail to Malaysia recently to be able to renew our visas (instead of the costly option of flying there). Sometimes it was only us in our world of huge sky and sea, with only a small strip of land on the horizon, and sometimes we were happy to share the watery world with other yachts and fishing boats.

These seas offer different challenges: those of avoiding the numerous fishing flags that mark the fish traps and buoyed-up sections of fishing nets (and thereby avoid getting propellers fouled up in the nets)… and also avoiding the small-boat fishermen… and bad spirits! Local coastal fishermen use long-tail boats for their work, a colourful sight as the scarves on their bows flutter in prayer and apparently release bad spirits. Occasionally we see a long-tail, off to one side, suddenly accelerate and come rushing towards our boat to cross the bow with only metres to spare. Evidently they believe that if they pass in front of a yacht, in close enough proximity, the bad spirits from their boat will leave them and jump onto the yacht!

A more sobering reality is that some of the fishermen apparently pass dangerously close to the front of the yachts in order to force a collision and thus acquire a new long-tail boat in the ensuing claims, which are heard in local forums.

The large fishing boats are less threatening, if more intimidating in that it would be us at the bottom of the sea in the event of a collision! They are also more visible by day… and the horizon glows end-to-end with fishing lights at night. There are far too many fishing boats for these small, over-fished waters.

We were told that much foreign aid after the 2004 tsunami took the form of a new fishing fleet, and associated wages and diesel money until 2011, when foreign aid dries up. There is nothing left in these waters to provide a living for so many in the fishing industry and we fear for the fishermen from next year. Let it be said, however, that Ketoro boys (Rolf and John recently) caught a massive barracuda in these same waters… after cutting loose a magnificent tail-walking sailfish!

When dealing with storms, your world becomes very small: just you, the boat, waves and wind, and the business of getting through it safely. In this passage to Malaysia, we were spared real storms and enjoyed alternately a wonderful calm world and then superb sailing winds… but one morning on leaving an overnight anchorage we were surprised to find the group of fishermen nearby on a set of rafted fishing boats at anchor, gesticulating to us and conveying the message that the waves were too big out there, and we should rather remain in the sheltered anchorage. Unsettling as that was (they work here and know these seas, don’t they? So we should heed their advice!) we ventured forth, resolving to return within an hour if they were proved correct. Well, the sail was brisk and not very comfortable, but we were glad of the opportunity for some hard sailing again and felt great when entering Pulau (Malay word for Island) Langkawi in Malaysia the next day.

Turns out land exploration in Langkawi is as interesting as it is in Thailand and deserves far more time than the two separate weekends we have devoted to it so far. The charm of the rural setting, complete with water buffalo grazing alongside the main roads, has made us determined to explore this area further. Pulau Langkawi Geopark, a World Heritage Site, is spectacularly beautiful when seen from the cable car that is set up in two stages, while the bridge is an amazing feat of engineering… and anyone with vertigo is advised to keep looking ahead and up!

On our return from Malaysia we cleared into Thailand again, thus starting the clock on another one-month visa, and waited impatiently for friends to visit. Andrea and Brian, Veronica and John spent about 8 days at a resort north of Patong Beach on Phuket island, but subjected themselves to our tour plans for land and sea, giving up their air-conditioned hotel comforts for two nights and three days on Ketoro.

The land side of the visit included Phuket Old Town, Wat (Temple) Chalong and a poignant 10m-high Tsunami Memorial metal sculpture called Jitt Jakawan (Heart of the Universe). Another stop was the Big Buddha. This stands proud on the highest hill of Phuket; it had gazed East and over us for many days in Ao Chalong (Bay) so a visit was called for. The statue, 45m high and covered by 135 tons of Burmese white marble, is still under construction; the enormity of the task and the quantities of materials is staggering, and the project is funded entirely by donations. The Big Buddha is accompanied by an already-completed 12m high, 22-ton, imposing brass Buddha statue.

Land travel was undertaken in Tuk-tuks (allowing us to chat and sight-see, leaving the stress of driving in crazy traffic and breaking down at the top of a steep hill to our driver) and on scooters: yes, despite Rolf’s “Driving in Thailand” blog our friends were brave enough to try scooter travel. Happily none us of ended the day with injuries beyond the head impaled on a mirror that is visible in this photo….!

The freedom and independence offered by scooter travel is wonderful; we went off the regular tourist tracks and were able to enjoy roads along beaches and through busy little villages and stop at a roadside market we happened upon which offered a huge (and largely exotic, to western tastebuds) variety of foods to sample and savour… or reject.

Thailand surprises visitors with its range of shopping experiences and the incredible variety of fruits and vegetables available. We subjected our guests to as much as we could, including local fruits rambutans, dragon fruit and the durian fruit, famed for its rich, exotic taste and pungent rotten smell (the word “subjected” has this fruit in mind: hotels refuse to keep it on their premises!)

Menus always provide interest: from the variety of new tastes and food-types to (when an English text is offered) the spelling and hence odd associations! We could not recommend the tuna “sandwic” option in this menu.

When it came to their time on the sea, Ketoro obliged our guests as she generally does, and tested this next group of stalwarts: the electric halyard winch gave up, forcing skipper Rolf to supervise ‘crewmen’ Brian and John as they applied brute force to the manual winch and manfully raised the heavy main sail (happily, the fault fixed itself and the electric winch worked fine the next day). We were lucky to have amazingly good sailing winds that carried us off to the magnificent islands of Phang Nga Bay with their lagoons, hongs, caves and tunnels to negotiate in the dinghy; followed by great snorkeling off Ko Hae (Coral Island).

The Sea Recovery water-maker being in the same state of disrepair it has been for the past few months (all under warranty of course), we were cautious with water usage but our new canvas water-collector did a great job. A 3-day requirement for water is not particularly onerous, but nonetheless some decided to have a sea-bath and were delighted to be swimming with millions of tiny bio-luminescent sea creatures. As with previous visitors to the boat, the heat was oppressive and some found it better to sleep on the trampoline, but the best use for the trampoline, of course, is “drinks-on-deck”. Happily Ketoro managed to avoid being beset by bad spirits from fishing boats (instead, enjoying the most incredible fresh prawns from one of them), but the drinks on deck experiences provided spirit of another kind.

We are now about to embark on some serious land visiting: to land-locked Pretoria to be with friends and family for a month. Our sea home is not a “lock-up-and-go”: preparing it for our time away has included taking everything out of lockers and out of bags to dry things off before returning them to their storage space; in the process we have had to address issues of mould on most items, ditto rust … even on items not exposed to the sea (eg un-openable zips of wetsuits and equipment bags) and a scuba tank compressor that has compleley succumbed to corrosion and manages only some desultory flatulance. All canvases are safely inside a cabin, the food lockers have been cleared of resident weevils (lest we be met by batallions of them on our return), the dinghy is covered (required swimming in the marina water, taking care to avoid the monitor lizard and lion fish that live under the pontoons), the fuel from jerry cans has been poured into the diesel tank (to decrease the volume of air above the fuel and thereby minimise condensation), the water in the water tank has been treated and most importantly the lines that secure Ketoro to the jetty have been checked and re-checked lest she loses her hold on land.