Waiting out the wind near Kho Lanta

There have been strong winds for several days due to a blizzard
producing high pressure over China. These winds sweep down over the
Malay peninsula blasting everything with frequent gusts of 30 knots
even a few hundred meters from the protecting shore.

Since it is not fun to sail with such gusty winds and finding good
protective anchorages a challenge too, we departed Phuket last
Saturday and motor sailed over to Kho Lanta. This is a long island
with mountains. We are just taking it easy and reading and doing
chores.

Today Susan baked fresh bread. What a good use of free time. Also,
with the consistent winds, I have sorted out the problem with our wind
generator and seem to have it producing power now.

Wednesday we will sail on toward Malaysia. We need to be in Penang by
1 February.

Hanging out in PhangNga Bay

We've been anchored in a beautiful cove off of Kho Yao Yao in Thailand's PhangNga Bay. Quite relaxing; however very sunny and rather hot in the afternoons. Tomorrow we go about 9 nautical miles to Phuket Boat Lagoon Marina for a week while we get some rigging repairs etc.

Ao Po Grand Marina - Phuket Island, Thailand

We have been able to get a berth at Ao Po Marina on Phuket Island.
When we were in Phuket previously they had yet to build sea walls to
protect the marina, thus it was not a great place to be in the winter
season with winds from north or east. However, the walls are there
and they had a berth available, so here we are. The marina has a nice
setting in Phang Nga Bay about half way up Phuket Island's east coast.
The water is deep and there are no tidal limitations for entry. A big
improvement over Boat Lagoon Marina where the draft is always a touchy
issue and 80% of the time too shallow to enter.

We hope that we will be able to organize repairs to our steering
system relatively soon, but boats are boats and one never knows what
to expect. There is a Parker hydraulic supplies store in Phuket, so
it is mainly a matter of having the right stock available and the
manpower to get it installed. Mainly we need 15 meters of half inch
5000 psi wire re-enforced hydraulic hose and a bunch of high quality
fittings to connect things. We'll take out all the old copper pipes.
Copper tubing is still recommended by the marine industry, but it is
too fragile for our comfort.

New Year's dinner on SV Villa G

Fresh prawns from this morning's catch and homemade potatoes salad. YUM! 😋

NEW YEARS OF 2016

Happy New YEAR'S from Phang Nga Bay Thailand!  Blue skies and brisk NE wind and about 87 F. Maybe a few showers next week, but it is the dry season and should be mild until middle of February.

Susan just bought a kilo of fresh prawns from a local fisherman (husband and wife). These will be great with homemade potatoes salad.

We lost the use of our hydraulic steering and autopilot on the trip up from Langkawi, so we will hang out unto business reopen and organize repairs in Phuket.  There are worse place to be held up for a week. :)