Cruising in Paradise
After spending far too much time and money on boat maintenance, it’s time to address our poor boat-job to sailing ratio! It’s time to go sailing! The area around Phuket – Phang Nga bay – is the type of cruising area I’ve been dreaming of for years. The distances between destinations are quite modest, the scenery is stunning, and most of the area is shallow enough to anchor pretty much wherever you want. And, for an added challenge, I would be doing a lot of the sailing single-handed with my first-mate, Helen, having returned to the UK at the end of April.
People often ask how many people it takes to sail Aroha. With the autopilot – the computer and drive unit that can steer the boat – you only need one. Extra hands make tasks like berthing or anchoring easier, and of course if or when something goes wrong.
I much prefer sailing with Helen on board. We make a pretty good team, balancing out strengths and weaknesses and also providing a second opinion sounding board. I mentioned in an earlier blog about how stressful I sometimes find the responsibility of being in charge, and it’s amplified when I don’t have my first mate to double check. But we have both become quite adept at dealing with the various challenges and changes that have come our way.
It’s difficult to put my excitement about leaving the marina for the first time into words. With the corona-delay and the seemingly never-ending boat jobs, it felt like the payoff was finally here. And it didn’t disappoint. Friends Nico and Laura joined for the first trip – a long weekend hopping around a couple of islands just a couple of hours north of the marina that’s become my home. The top of Phang Nga bay is characterised by dramatic limestone islands that appear to jut right out of the sea, creating picture postcard images every way you look.
I’ve had the local Cruising Guide on board for about three years. It lists local attractions and suggested anchorages, and it’s finally starting to get some use. I’ve been brought up to respect books as precious items but I’m quietly happy that this particular one is getting good use and starting to look appropriately dog eared.
With both Aroha and I being freshly back in the water, I planned a fairly easy route for the long weekend. There are so many skills you need cruising in a sailboat, the last month back on board has felt like a lot of re-learning skills, like passage planning and anchoring. Last week I picked up a mooring buoy for the first time in over ten years. I had to search online to make sure I was doing it right, and thanks to You Tube and a bit of practice, this week, I’m an expert! As a side note, if you’re googling “how to pick up a buoy in Thailand”, be very particular with your spelling.
I’m also re-learning how to live aboard. We had full batteries during the crossing from India since we were running the engine every day, but staying at one anchorage for several days takes energy conservation and planning. A friend recently asked me how long the batteries can keep the systems on board running. There’s no straight answer – I said, “it depends on how many cups of coffee we have each morning!”. I’ve said it before and it’s obvious when you think about it – it really does depend on your consumption, which you have control over, and your ability to generate energy to recharge the battery bank. We have good batteries (7.2 kWHs of LiFePO4) and solar (680 W) on board, but you suddenly become aware that every coffee takes energy to brew (about 1% of our battery capacity!) and you can’t have too many shady days in a row. Our big consumer is our induction cooktop which can use about 10% of our capacity for a ‘normal’ sized meal. On the flip side, the most we can expect from our solar panels is to top up about 30% of our capacity each day – although this was compromised when I removed two of our six panels that had a habit of getting air borne when squalls blows through.
I giggle each time I open our weather or navigation apps – the default views cover a substantial proportion of SE Asia. I’m not embarrassed to have to zoom in a LOT to the little area that I am happy is our current cruising ground. Considering that our last two passages have been about 1,500 nm (about 2,800 km, 15 days passage) each, our current ambitions don’t extend beyond day sails between idyllic anchorages.
I have been getting to know the local landscape and topography. Some of the limestone islands feature caves and “hongs”, Thai for “room”, which are created where the limestone dissolves over millennia down to sea level, sometimes opening to the sky. Some are accessible by dinghy or kayak at various states of the tide and are just stunning. The more popular ones are quite busy during the day with day tours, but from late afternoon cruisers get the tranquillity all to themselves.
After dropping Nico and Laura back at Phuket, I set about moving Aroha to her new home at Krabi Boat Lagoon marina. It’s only about 30 miles in a straight line but with Helen still back in the UK and me sailing solo, I was determined to take it easy and not take any unnecessary risks.
The tides aren’t huge here – varying about 3m from low to high tide – but it’s worth considering the currents as they can really affect your passage times. It also helps to plan to raise the anchor on the slack water when there is little or no current, reducing the need to motor forward which is a little tricky to do if you’re by yourself. The new marina is located up a river and the final channel through the mangroves is only 0.1m deep on the chart! That means that (with Aroha being 2m deep to her keel) you need to calculate for at least 2m of tide. This is much less water than I’m used to sailing in and I’ve found myself checking and rechecking my tidal calculations quite often.
I had to do a quick trip up to Bangkok to apply for a long-term UK visa, so I got to have a few days with Nico and Laura in their current expat hometown. I realised that I’ve visited the city previously as a child, as a young backpacker, with the family, on a business trip, and now staying with expats. Each time I feel like I see quite a different side of this vibrant city.
This is the type of cruising that I’ve always dreamed of, but done relatively little of. I love the idea of waking up in the morning, having no fixed plan of where to be or when, and checking tides and weather and doing short day-hops. It’s taken a while, but I’m finally living this dream. I look forward to sharing it once my first mate gets back and I’m able to share the new reality of short-haul sailing in an idyllic destination.
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