Around The World On Hokule'a

Thailand

Thursday, March 6, 2014 – Koh Tarutao, Thailand

We just finished watching our last sunset in Thailand waters here at the island of Koh Tarutau. Tomorrow morning we will continue south and be back in Malaysia by afternoon. It’s hard to believe that in a very short 7 weeks we travelled all the way up the west coast of Thailand and all the way back down again.  We have spent the past few days at a wonderful island called Koh Lanta. Here we caught up with our friends on the boats Kite and Shango and we organized sort of a farewell to Thailand dive trip. Jackie graciously offered stay on Hokule’a and keep an eye on the boats, while Jack and Zdenka (Kite), Roger and Amy (Shango), Bill (Solstice), and I headed 50 miles offshore on a local dive boat to a pair of reefs called Hin Miang and Hin Daeng.  It was an amazing way to end our underwater experience in Thailand as we were spoiled with multiple giant manta rays hanging out with us on all of our dives.  From the beautiful reefs and sea life, to the stunning rock formations in the national parks, to the amazing Thai foods (especially the Thai green curry), Thailand has been wonderful. It certainly deserves a lot more time than we have been able to give it, but the southwest monsoon season is just around the corner and we have to keep heading south.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

Sunday, March 2, 2014 – Rai Le Beach, Krabi, Thailand

After a great time in Nai Yang, we headed back down to Ao Chalong to re-provision and check out of Thailand. Unfortunately there are no (convenient) checkout ports south of Phuket, so we had to check out of the country even though we were going to be in Thailand waters for another week or two.

From Ao Chalong we headed north along the east coast of Phuket and up into Phang Nga Bay. Most ofPhang Nga is National Park and it has some of Thailand’s most spectacular scenery with hundreds of small islands jutting vertically out of the milky green water. While the water is not so inviting for swimming, it does add a beautiful backdrop for the islands.  The water is also pretty shallow, especially in the northern part of the bay, so we had to time a lot of our movements around high tide.  We spent our first night at Koh Phanak Island anchored next to a sheer vertical cliff face extending hundreds of feet in the air. We also visited the most famous island in the bay called Koh Phing Kan which is better known as James Bond Island because it is where the 007 film “Man with the Golden Gun” was filmed.  Probably my favorite anchorage in Phang Nga was at the small uninhabited island of Koh Roi where there was a beautiful and well protected anchorage with lots of caves and small beaches to explore by dingy.  Another interesting place was the island of Koh Hong which is shaped somewhat like a donut and in the middle of the island is a beautiful lagoon. On the north side there is a small opening in the island where you can take your dingy inside to explore the lagoon.  As it seems with most places we visit, Phang Nga Bay is deserving of much more time than we were able spend there. There are just too many beautiful islands, caves, beaches and rivers to explore in Phang Nga.

We are now south of Phang Nga near Krabi at a rock climbing mecca known as Rai Le Beach.  While Rai Le Beach is on the mainland, it is only accessible by boat or helicopter because it is completely enclosed by huge limestone cliff faces (hence the good rock climbing). The beach here is pretty awesome too and the water is starting to get swimmable again. We stumbled upon a cave today called Phranang where there were hundreds of phallic wood carvings laying around inside the cave. Apparently the local fishermen believe that the spirit of a goddess named Phranang lives inside this cave and before heading out to sea they stop by the cave to ask her for good luck. Upon their return and if they had a successful trip, the fishermen go back to the cave and leave an offering for Phranang which is usually a phallic wood carving also known as a “lingam”. Based on the number of lingams we saw, the fishing must be really good and Phranang must be one happy goddess…..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monday, February 24, 2014 – Nai Yang , Thailand

We left  Koh Phayam with Solstice and our friends Roger and Sherry on the boat Equanimity  and headed  40 miles southwest to a group of offshore islands called the Surins.  The islands here are part of the Koh Surin National Marine Park and are reported to have some of the best diving and snorkeling in all of Thailand. Because it is a national park they don’t allow you to anchor, but we got lucky and grabbed the only 3 moorings on the west side of main island of Koh Surin. The islands were beautiful and it was so nice to be in clean, clear water again. Unfortunately the snorkeling was pretty average as the coral was mostly dead. We did however have a fantastic dive on a submerged underwater pinnacle call Richelieu Rock. The rock is about 8 miles east of Koh Surin and Roger and Sherry were kind enough to take us out there on Equanimity.

After a few relaxing days at Koh Surin we headed 55 miles south to another group of offshore islands called the Similans.  The Similans are also a national park, but they get a lot more tourist boat traffic than the Surins because they are easier to access from the mainland. We got there pretty late in the day and fortunately found a mooring at the northern most island called Koh Bangu. We are always skeptical of being on a mooring because you never know how secure it is or how well it has been maintained, so the first order of business was for me to grab my mask and fins and jump over the side to check it out. The water was gorgeous and thankfully the mooring looked pretty good.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

 

Friday, February 14, 2014 – Koh Phayam Island, Thailand

The island of Koh Phayam has been a welcome respite from all of the tourism in Thailand. It’s a beautiful island, with long uncrowded white sand beaches, clear water, with a few rustic bars, restaurants and backpacker places mixed in.  My favorite place is called the Hippie Bar where the owner told us that he was so blessed because everything he needed to build the bar was given to him by the sea (literally washed up on the beach during the southwest monsoon season). There are no cars on the island, only motor bikes and a few tractors that deliver supplies and help with the export of cashew nuts and sap from the rubber trees. I imagine that this is what Phuket must have been like some 50 years ago.

So where is Koh Phayam you ask? Well it is on the west coast of Thailand just south of the border between Thailand and Burma. It’s pretty much the furthest north that we can go with Hokule’a  in Thailand. It’s also the furthest north that we have been since leaving Mexico three years ago and but more importantly it means that it is decision time as to which way we go from here. 

When we envisioned this trip many years ago the thought was always to head west from South East Asia to the Red Sea and into the Mediterranean.  Unfortunately the pirate situation off the Horn of Africa puts that option way outside of our comfort zone, so that means that we must head to South Africa and go around Cape Good Hope to continue our journey westward.  From Koh Phayam we have 3 options for getting to South Africa. Option 1 is to head west from Thailand to the Andaman Islands (territory of India), on to Sri Lanka, south to the Maldives, further south to Chagos, then on to the northern tip of Madagascar and down the Mozambique coast to South Africa.  Option 2 is to head south to Sumatra and take our time cruising down the west coast of Sumatra while waiting out cyclone season and then head to Cocos Keeling and on to South Africa via Rodriquez, Reunion, and Mauritius. Option 3 is to head back down through Thailand, back down the Malacca Strait, wait out cyclone season for a few months in Southern Malaysia, then head towards Java and out the Sundas Strait to Cocos Keeling and South Africa via Rodriquez, Reunion, and Mauritius.

We have been wrestling with this decision for months and like most things in life there is no perfect option. Each option has its advantages, disadvantages and some level of risk. I could bore you with pages and pages about our research and how we came to our decision, but I won’t...we are going with Option 3.  (If anyone is seriously interested in more detail send me an email and I will be happy to share).  Option 3 is actually my least favorite option because I hate the thought of backtracking, but it’s probably the smartest one to take at this point. The great things about this option are that it will allow us to spend more time in Thailand, visit parts of Malaysia and Indonesia that we missed on the way up,  do some land travel to other parts of Asia, visit Cocos Keeling, and to travel with friends who are also doing this route.

Tomorrow we start heading south, so tonight I am sitting on deck staring at all of the northern hemisphere constellations that we won’t see again until we reach the Caribbean.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Sunday, February 9, 2014 – Ban Thap Lamu, Thailand

We are still day hopping up the west coast of Thailand and we are roughly half way between Phuket and the Burma border.  About 50 miles off the coast, there is a group of islands called the Similans which reportedly have some of the best diving in all of Thailand. Ban Thap Lamu is the closest mainland port to the Similans and as such it is packed full of dive boats and tourist boats. Starting at about 8am all of these boats leave the pier and come speeding through the anchorage at 20 knots on their way out to the Similans. This makes the otherwise flat calm harbor really rough, loud, and uncomfortable until the last boat leaves around 10am.  The situation then repeats itself from 4pm to 6pm when all the boats return from the Similans.

Bill and I really wanted to dive the Similans and the easiest way for us to get there was to jump on one of said boats and go diving for the day with someone who has local knowledge about the dive sites. Obviously this meant that poor Jackie would have to stay with Hokule’a in this miserable harbor for an extra day. But being the trooper that she is, she agreed and even delivered us to the dive boat in our dingy.

We went on a boat called the Manta Queen V (run by Koh Lak Scuba Adventures) out to one of the northern most Similan Islands called Koh Bon. It’s a tiny rock island in crystal clear water where manta rays often come to feed.  Within 10 minutes of jumping in the water our group of five divers was being buzzed by a very big (15’ wingspan) manta. On our second dive an even larger manta with a large shark bite out of one of his wings came by for a few visits. I can’t begin to describe how magical it is to be in the water with those big mantas.

On another note, prior to arriving in Ban Thap Lamu we visited the infamous Patong Beach in Phuket where we observed a very different type of wildlife. But that’s another story for another time…

Monday, February 3, 2014 – Ao Chalong, Phuket, Thailand

On Saturday we officially cleared into the country of Thailand, even though we have been in Thai waters for the past 10 days.  Due to the limited number of clearance ports between Langkawi and Phuket, the Thai officials unofficially let cruisers have a grace period to check in. We milked the grace period for all it was worth and probably would have pushed it longer except that we had a party to attend in Phuket. We literally arrived in Ao Chalong at 1pm, rushed into town to clear in, came back to the boat to shower and then went straight to the party at the Ao Chalong Yacht Club.

The party was primarily sponsored by a company that ships cruising boats around the world and it was free for international cruisers. Anytime there is a free anything anywhere, cruisers come out of the woodwork and will travel hundreds of miles to get there. Surely the company sponsoring the party must know that the majority of the people coming to a free party don’t have $40,000 to ship their boat somewhere in the world, but it was a really great party and we had a chance to catch up with a lot of our sailing friends that we hadn’t seen in a while.

Ao Chalong is at the southern end of Phuket and when approaching the town from sea the sailing directions say to steer towards the Big Buddha on the hill above town. They weren’t  kidding, there is a 150 foot tall statue of Buddha that you can see from miles away. Who needs traditional navigational aids when you have a giant Buddha to steer towards.

We have spent a few days here doing some touristy stuff and we even found a place to watch the Superbowl this morning. The traffic is horrible here, but the provisioning is really good (if you can figure out what some of the stuff is). So we have loaded up the boat and we are heading north up the west coast of Thailand tomorrow.

~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~

 

Tuesday, January 28, 2014 – Maya Bay, Phi Phi Le Island, Thailand

Today is our friend Jeep’s birthday and we couldn’t be at a better place to celebrate his memory.  Jeep’s death back in 2010 was certainly one of the reasons that we chose to go cruising now, instead of waiting until we retired.  Since we left California, we have been carrying a small tupperware container with some of Jeep’s ashes in itand whenever we end up somewhere really special we spread a little bit of his ashes there.  Maya Bay is certainly one of those places.  This place is exactly what I imagined when I thought of coming to Thailand; an uninhabited island, with an anchorage in turquoise water, surrounded on 3 sides by gigantic tree covered limestone cliffs with a few amazing white sand beaches spread about.  What I hadn’t imagined was the thousands of tourists that are brought here each day by boats of every shape and size from the nearby inhabited islands. Apparently the tourist appeal of Maya Bay, besides its stunning beauty, is that the Leonardo DiCaprio movie “The Beach” was filmed here.  

We arrived here with Solstice just before 8am this morning and Maya Bay was calm and tranquil with only 2other sailboats, a dive boat and a couple long tail boats in the anchorage.  By 9am Hokule’a was bouncing around in the wakes created by dozens of speed boats and longtails delivering tourists to the beach. It was chaotic in the anchorage and even more so at the beach where the tourist boats were literally side to side along the entire length of the beach.  Bill and I took the dingy to the beach to see what all the fuss was about and it was so crowded that you couldn’t take 5 steps without having to weave your way around people or before you were getting in the way of someone trying to take a photo.  We barely had enough room to get the dingy off the beach as we squeezed through a gap between the last boat and the limestone cliff. The constant flow of boats back and forth finally slowed down around 2pm and by 4pm Maya Bay was back to its calm and tranquil state.

Throughout the day a number of sailboats approached Maya Bay, saw the chaos and turned away.  It’s a shame because chaotic or not this place is absolutely gorgeous.  Sometimes you have to see through the chaos to appreciate the true beauty of a place.  Jeep on the otherhand would have loved all the chaos, embraced it and participated.  I could see him now somehow hitching a ride on a speedboat, chatting up all the bikini babes on the beach, jumping off the side of the “Bob’s Booze Cruise Boat” into an inner tube, and then having a cocktail on the nearly deserted beach with a couple of his pals just to watch the sunset.  Here’s to you Jeep…Happy Birthday!

Sunday, January 26, 2014 – Ton Sai Bay, Phi Phi Don, Thailand

Well we finally escaped Rebak Marina (Malaysia) and made it to Thailand. It’s hard to believe that we sailed a mere 24 miles (less than from Redondo to Catalina) and we are in a new country with a very different language, currency and culture. And what a dramatic cultural change it has been  in that short distance; from the no alcohol and full birka (women covered from head to toe with only their eyes showing) practices of Muslim Malaysia to the party all night bars and topless beaches of Thailand. Again, separated by only 24 miles.

But first I need to back track a little bit. Our time in Rebak was mostly spent on getting Hokule’a ship shape for the year ahead and we worked our butts off. Haulout, bottom paint, rudder maintenance, new cutlass bearing, thru hull servicing, waxing, varnishing, tons of preventative maintenance, replacing spare parts, provisioning, etc., etc., etc. Granted it was a really nice place to be if you have to work your butt off as you are on a beautiful island, with a nice beach, a swimming pool and a great resort.  We did take a few days off to have some fun and one of which was for Bill’s 50th birthday. We started the day off by taking a cable car up to the highest mountain in Langkawi, took a boat ride down a river to a floating restaurant for lunch, then ended up in Cenang Beach for an all night (literally) birthday party with a bunch of cruising friends.

We cleared out of Malaysia this past Monday and headed to the Butang Islands in Thailand spending time at both Koh Lipe and Koh Adang. It has been so nice to swim, dive and snorkel in clear water again after being in the muddy waters of the Malacca Strait for so long.  On the island of Kho Muk we swam through a meandering 300 foot long pitch black cave to the inside of the island where there is a small beach that is completely surrounded by 1000 foot high cliffs.

We are now on the island of Phi Phi Don which was one of the places hit hardest by the Indian Ocean tsunami back in 2004. Sadly, nearly 4000 of the estimated 10,000 people on the island that morning were killed and over 70% of the homes and buildings were destroyed.  Today it is a really beautiful island, but it suffers from some serious post tsunami over development.  Tons of tourists, boats, bars and restaurants.  One of the bars even has a boxing ring where you can fight anyone else in the bar and the winner gets a bucket of beers.  Phi Phi Don reminds us of a smaller version of Cabo San Lucas but with nicer beaches.  You just have to be careful when parking your dingy on some of the beaches as you may come home with a new crew member…

~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~

Monday, January 6, 2014 – Rebak Island, Northern Malaysia (not quite in Thailand but close)

So it’s a New Year and I thought I would start it off with an apology for not keeping the website up to date. We had a legitimate excuse in Indonesia because of the lack of internet access, a partially plausible excuse in Singapore and Southern Malaysia due to time constraints, but honestly no excuse since we have been here at Rebak in Northern Malaysia. Part of the problem is that I seriously under estimated the time that it would take to get caught up, needing to go through literally thousands of photos and typing up my hand written journal notes.  No more excuses.

So the plan is to focus on current updates and as time (and internet access) permits we’ll get caught up on past entries and photo albums for Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. We have seen far too many amazing things in those countries not to follow through and we will make sure to put a note up after current updates about any past entries that have been posted.

We hope that everyone enjoyed the Holidays and that you are having a wonderful 2014!
(**New entry posted for Indonesia dated 8/19/13**)