A Safe Harbour
We’re back in the UK now, but I started this blog as we were back in “our” marina, putting Aroha to bed for the off-season. It seemed like a nice time to reflect on our experiences in marinas this past season.
We aim to spend most of our time “on the hook”, that is, at anchor. It’s nice to be close to nature and free to move around between different spots. After all, we are spoilt for choice with the forever changing View From Our Bathroom Window! The View From Our Bathroom Window – Ripening Nicely
There are seven marinas in our cruising area – each with their own characteristics – accessibility, boat workshop availability and “poshness”. It was in our original plan (and budget) to go to marinas occasionally – it’s nice to be able to step off Aroha and walk ashore – far easier than our usual routine of lowering our dinghy and landing on the local beach! But we generally wait until we have a reason, like needing work done on Aroha, visa runs, or to meet friends etc, and then we take that opportunity to fill up on fuel, stock up on groceries, visit the dentist… all the things that are easier to do when we’re attached to land.
We have a long-term rental rate with “our” marina (Krabi Boat Lagoon), which makes it more affordable to come and go. It’s been a good base for when we have had boat chores to do, and a short drive from Krabi town. The downside is that there are not many maintenance and supply services available there as opposed to the more well serviced marinas in Phuket.
Mid way through the season we stayed for a few days at one of the Phuket marinas to get help with a few boat jobs. The sister marina to ours, Phuket Boat Lagoon is bustling with activity and surrounded by many great marine workshops and suppliers. And it’s also kind of posh. On the morning we were heading in, I found myself having a shave and choosing a nice shirt to wear! But the big downside is it’s located up a shallow creek- so shallow that keel boats like Aroha need to time their arrival and departure with the state of the tide. There’s enough depth typically to come or go only for an hour or two of daylight each day. Depending on what the moon’s doing, sometimes the tide isn’t high enough at all for several days in a row!
“Butt clenching” was the way I described the one hour passage the first time we did it. Since it was our first time, we arranged for the marina to send a “pilot” boat out to guide us in. The chart datum is close to 0m, meaning that we need two meters of tide (and a bit of spare) above that to give us enough depth to safely clear the bottom.
Our usual marina is located up a river that narrows into a channel cut into the mangroves, which also takes some balancing of the tide. But it’s funny how the approach to the Phuket marina is actually scarier, because you can’t see the edge of the channel in the green-blue opaque water – you have to trust the chart and the line of poles marking one side of it, knowing that just a few meters further is shallow enough to run aground on.
We had a few hectic days of boat jobs, punctuated with afternoon swims in the beautiful marina pool and tasty meals ashore. We had a new bimini (canvas sun cover) made, so now our flexible solar panels are sitting better and producing more power, as well as finally sorting out an ongoing battery charging issue. I also re-seated a problematic leaky hatch – a job that expanded so much beyond my original expectation that it would deserve its own blog if I wasn’t trying to block the whole frustrating experience from my memory. Our anchor windlass (the electric winch with lowers and raises our anchor) has also been playing up a bit – not surprising considering that it’s had about as much use in the past six months as the preceding 16 years. We installed a new controller, including foot buttons, which we first considered when we got Aroha back in 2006. So, in conclusion, I’d like to say that if a man says he’s going to do something, there’s no need to remind him about it every twelve years.
The funny thing was that after a few hectic days, I sat down to plan our departure – only to find that the high tides for the coming few days weren’t deep enough for us. Since we had our visa-run flight to catch in a few days, we decided to depart on the second high tide of the day, early evening. We definitely appreciated the pilot on board as we went through the channel in the dark.
I think manoeuvring in marinas is one of the trickier, but more rewarding, parts of boat driving. Everything is much closer to you, you have to drive slower which makes the handling slacker, and you need to allow for the wind moving you around. And of course, in the posh marinas, amongst the things that your risk hitting are multi-million-dollar yachts! On top of that you’ve almost always got an audience in busy marinas! When I bought Aroha way back in 2006, I made it a condition that when she was delivered, the agent would teach me how to park her! On the delivery day, we spent a morning driving in and out of the Dubai marina, and I only had one minor crash!
If practice makes perfect, then the lack of using marinas has made me wonder at times if I could remember how to park. Back in 2009 when we returned from our first loop of the Indian Ocean, it wasn’t until I was motoring into the UAE marina that I realised I hadn’t parked in a marina for over six months, and I had a short but deep bout of self-doubt about whether I could do it at all.
We spent our last week in Thailand back in ‘our’ marina, getting Aroha ready to lift out of the water and put to bed for the time we’re away in the UK. This is the third time we’ve left her for a long-ish period, and I think we get a little better each time we do. We spent the time taking her sails off, decommissioning systems, packing bedding, and clothing in vacuum bags, and setting up a dehumidifier and monitoring systems.
We plan to be in the UK until about November – the start of the next sailing season. Until then, we can rest assured that Aroha is being well looked after in ‘her’ marina in Thailand.
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