Phuket to Langkawi

Sunday October 17 – Chalong Bay - I hauled the anchor and headed south east toward Langkawi Malaysia. I had checked out with Immigration, Customs and Harbour Master on the Friday. This was again relatively painless costing 400B (about AU$15.00) and took only half an hour. I had planned on leaving on the Saturday. However, a few drinks and a meal with a couple of the lads from the Sand Bar left me with a sore head, so I took my time getting the boat ready for the sail south.

I had spoken to Brent, a great source of local knowledge, thinking that I would island hop on the way south. Brent advised sailing straight to Langkawi given the time of year and it still being the South West Monsoon.
South west monsoon - Summer – Hot with fluky winds predominantly from the south west
North east monsoon – Winter – Light and variable winds predominantly from the north east.

The distance from Phuket to Langkawi is aproximately 115 miles – another 24 plus hour non stop trip with some decent wind. After a month at anchor in Chalong Bay it was so good to be out sailing again in 10 to 15 knots from the west, with Smithy (Windpilot) on the tiller and full sails up. The seas were a little lumpy as the water depth is only 50 to 100 meters deep and the swell was from the west.

At 15.00 I decided on a change in plan and headed for Ko Rok Nok and Ko Rok Nai small islands some 40 miles south of Phuket. I referred to the Indian Ocean Cruising Guide by Rod Heikell to get info on anchoring around these islands - a very good cruising guide, by the way. I planned to over night there. I anchored in 12 metres of water between the two islands and noticed the tidal current. My back and arms gave twinge at the impending hauling in of the anchor in 12 metres of water with all chain rode! That’s another story and yes I was told so.

The following day I hauled up the anchor and continued south. The winds dropped around latitude 6 degrees with sails slatting. I attempted to fly the MPS but was unable to in the lumpy seas in decreasing wind. Nothing for it other than to fire up the motor and head to the Butang Islands and Ko Lipe.

I anchored, again in 12 metres of water, on the south side of the small Ko Lipe and had a rough night rolling in the swell. I hauled anchor the following day and moved to the northern side of the island, hoping also to find a shallower anchorage. Things that go bump in the night! I had anchored reasonably near a mooring buoy in 6 metres of water in the channel between the small island of Ko Lipe and the larger island of Ko Adang. There was a reasonable tidal current running. During the night the fisherman’s anchor must have tripped with the change of tide and Sadiqi drifted back and bumped onto the mooring buoy. The mooring buoy bumping against the hull does not make for a good nights sleep, this, of course, happened at 3am! I had thought about taking the easy option picking up the mooring lines. Fortunately, I reset the anchor a good distance from the buoy, when I awoke at a more reasonable hour there was a fairly large wooden vessel on the mooring unloading its cargo onto hoards of longtail boats.

I rowed ashore to Ko Lipe, had a brief walk around part of the island, noticed it was starting to gear up for the oncoming tourist season. I think I’d prefer the less inhabited islands in the Butang group when the tourist season (Nov to Feb) was in full swing.

I departed Ko Lipe and headed for Langkawi island. There were squadrons of fishing boats trawling the waters between the Butang islands and Langkawi. Sadiqi managed to escape without becoming ensnared with the fishing fleet. Best to avoid sailing between a pair of trawling boats as I think they were trawling a net between them. I changed the time zone on entering Malaysian waters to UTC +8.

Thursday October 21 I dropped the anchor in Telaga harbour Langkawi island, Malaysia.
Nelson and Claude on “Black Swan”, whom I had met in Sabang Indonesia, came over for a chat. It was great to have someone in the know about what, how and where things are in Langkawi. The check in with Immigration and Customs was absolutely painless at Telaga harbour. However, being a Friday in a Moslem country, the harbour master was not open until Sunday. Nelson took me for a ride on the hire motorbike to Kuah the major town on Langkawi and I checked in with the harbour master there.

Phuket Chalong Bay

Tuesday October 12, it must have been time to move on. My 30 day visa for Thailand was due to expire in a few days. I changed the oil and serviced the engine in the morning. Rex rowed past and asked me to keep an eye on his boat while he went into town to vessel control to organise a bond for his boat “Pequod”. The weather forecast was for thunder storms and strong winds. I went ashore to get more engine oil and other supplies. On returning to the dingy several of the lads were having a beer at the Sand Bar and I felt compelled to join them, as you do. From the comfort of the bar we watched one squall go through Chalong Bay.

After several beers I returned to the boat. I was stowing stuff below when I noticed a dramatic increase in wind. I checked the wind speed and it was at 45 knots! I looked over at Rex’s boat and, alas, she was sideways onto the wind and dragging anchor! A few expletives were expressed! “Pequod” is a CAL 46, could be described as a 15 ton motor cruiser with a lot of windage, and poor visibility from the wheelhouse. I climbed into my inflatable dingy and raced over to the drifting boat, tied the dingy on the stern, then tried to figure out what to do and how to turn on the engine. The boat was almost upon a floating fish platform or fish farm with styrene floats, wood and corrugated iron sheds. By the time I figured out how to start the engine my dingy was sandwiched between “Pequod” and the fishing platform! When I tried to move Pequad forward the dingy flipped upside down and caught on the platform. I was dragging the platform by my dingy – not good. More profanity when I saw my 5 horse power outboard motor upside down in the water! I raced back, (46 feet is a lot of boat) managed to untangle the dingy and put it right way up. In the wind and rain I gingerly moved “Pequod” forward and managed to get away from the platform, without fouling the anchor lines holding the platform in place and with my dingy in tow. During the storm chaos I kept an eye on Sadiqi, noticed several other boats were sliding and having to be re-anchored. The wind and rain had abated a little. I had not managed to raise the anchor on Pequod and was dragging it through the mud until I could find space amongst the other boats to go forward and raise it. I noticed that another smaller fishing platform was following Pequod astern! I managed to raise the anchor and untangle the anchor line for the smaller fishing platform. I was covered in sticky ooze from the anchor chain. Fortunately, Pequod had an electrical anchor windlass. I had lost my sense of humour by this time. I finally managed to find enough space between other boats to drop the anchor. I made sure the anchor was bedded by going astern on the engine. I rowed over to the fishing platform and noticed that one of the sheds had a decided lean. I luckily managed to recover my shoes, fuel container and carpet that had been in the dingy, then rowed back to Sadiqi. I was not game to try and start the outboard after it had it had been drowned. I was busy trying to wash the outboard with fresh water and dry it out when Rex rowed by and asked if I had moved his boat – Jeez you think!. What an adventure.

The next day I thought winter had arrived in Thailand the maximum temp was only 27 degrees Celsius, the wind howled and it rained pretty much all day. It was too wet and windy to do anything on the boat. Fortunately, the winds were not as strong as the day before. Sadiqi’s anchor (B-anchor) dragged only a few meters. The leaning shed on the fishing platform/fish farm that Pequod and attacked the day before blew over during the day.

Thursday was a little dryer. I had the opportunity to take the two stroke outboard motor apart and attempt to resuscitate it. Earlier attempts at starting it had failed. When the carburettor was apart I found that the engine had been full of sea water. The service manual advised; that in the event of submersion the motor should be immediately taken to a Mercury Service centre. Hmm. After a painstaking few hours the outboard was reassembled and ready for a test. It actually started first time, however it sounds like an angry cement mixer. The motor will never be the same again. Rex was conspicuous by his absence. There is a moral to this story and as with this whole adventure I have learned another lesson.

Phuket Au Chalong

On arriving back at Au Chalong and the Sand Bar where I had tied the dingy I noticed that it had been moved to a new tie off line. Brent, from the Sand Bar was surprised and relieved to see me back so soon and told the story of my dingy going missing. The dingy had filled with water in the heavy rain, the high tides and strong winds had broken the line on which it was tied. The other hard tender that had been attached to the same line was still missing. My dingy had been found by some fishermen who had reported it to the police. Brent had paid US$60 for its recovery. It could have been worse I could have lost the dingy and outboard motor all together!

Sadiqi had drifted about 20 metres on the anchor and fortunately had not hit any other boats or been hit by other drifting boats. Fortunately, “B-anchor” the CQR had held reasonably well in the muddy bottom and just buried itself deeper. Rex, who had been keeping an eye on Sadiqi, had had a tough night when the mooring his boat “Piquad” had been attached to parted and he nearly ended up on the beach. He had to kedge himself off at 2.00 am! Apparently several other boats had ended up on the beach. I had been lucky. However, the experience has not given me much confidence in leaving the boat at anchor for any length of time.

Bangkok

The train arrived at Bangkok station at 10.00pm. I took a taxi to a hotel in the Silom area and briefly wondered around the seedy, raunchy Phatpong area before going to bed. The streets of Silom by night were completely different during the day with the temporary stalls selling very different wares. Bangkok was frenetic, busy and hot. I had intended to do some tours around Bangkok and take an overnight bus to Phuket. I was overwhelmed and decided to get the first available flight back to Phuket and the boat. The train to the airport was easy and very pleasant.

The AirAsia flight from Bangkok to Phuket cost US$140. I think the difference in price had something to do with flying out of Bangkok’s fancy new huge airport terminals and me sitting toward the front of the plane. The pleasant flight took just over an hour.

Chiang Mai

I planned on visiting friends in Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city in the mountains north of Bangkok. I had my reservations about leaving the boat on anchor for more than a day. However, that is something I had to learn to get over or become a slave to the boat. I spoke to several people to keep on eye on Sadiqi while I was away. Armed with the “Lonely Planet, South East Asia on a shoe string” I ventured into the Thai hinterland.

Sunday October 3 I flew AirAsia (US$90) from Phuket to Chiang Mai – good 2 hour flight. I stayed with friends Eric, Fiona, Russell and Stacey. What fantastic hospitality – many thanks to Eric and Fiona. It was interesting sleeping in a large bed that did not move, for the first time in four months. For some reason I did not sleep particularly well the first night. Russell, waiting to start University next year, was a great tour guide. We did the tourist thing of visiting Markets, a Wat (Temple) some shops then found a beer, chilled out and watched the world go by – very pleasant. The following day we did pretty much the same except near a lake where we kicked a rugby ball around, had a good lunch and a few beers while watching the world go by.

The fast train (Sprinter) from Chiang Mai to Bangkok cost US$20 took 13 hours. While waiting at the train station the stately “Eastern & Orient Express” rolled into Chiang Mai. Now that would be travelling in style of a bygone era. In the 3 car (Sprinter) train it was very pleasant sitting back and listening to the Clickity Clack of the wheels as it rolled through the towns, villages, plantations, rainforests and mountains of urban and rural Thailand. The train went through tunnels and passed dense, verdant green vegetation. We passed quaint, immaculate train stations with manual track switching and signalling gear – not much in the way of electronics other than lights. At one of the stations it was fascinating watching the station master frantically pull on large leavers to change tracks and signals.

It was an interesting and pleasant journey with the train only stopping at a few stations or waiting for a train to pass coming the other way. When the train had descended from the mountains we entered the flat lands where there was rice paddy after rice paddy. I think there was more water around than normal after some heavy rains in Vietnam.