Langkawi to Phuket
After a few very relaxing days, mostly hanging out in the restaurants and swimming pools in Langkawi´s marinas with my visiting friends Klemens and Paul our next destination was Thailand.
On the way to Phuket we stopped at the island of Phi Phi Don, which inspite of the beautiful scenery shocked us with all signs of mass tourism: speed- and tour boats, diving schools, bars and restaurants, tattoo-shops, massage-salons, internet spots and souvenir shops all over the place. After one night we had enough and proceeded to Phuket.
For cruisers the island of Phuket is a good place to get spare parts, get work done, re-provision and communicate with all those who areafter crossing the Indian Ocean bound for the Red Sea.
My birthday on December 20th I was lucky to celebrate with a group of friends in a nice beach restaurant on a small island near Phuket, away from masstourism. We spent a lovely evening with the crews of IMAGINE (USA; Marc, Jane & 3 kids Caroline, Grant, Noah), ANUI (AUS; Scott, Sarah & 2 kids Seth, Finn), ORONO (AUS; Peter, Donna & 2 kids P.J., Heidi), LIZZA FORTE (AUT; Matthias, Hubert) und THETIS (AUT; Fred, Kurt)
Christmas and New years Eve we spent in Nai Harn Bay, together with ca. 60 other yachts. It was there, where after seven years I met Gerhard and Elisabeth of SV Baloo (AUT) again. I met them first in Grenada in 2003 on my first voyage, when they had just set sail for a circumnavigation, scheduled for five years. And they´re still not home. this is how cruising plans can change!
On January 2nd my new crew Rolf joined and we left Phuket on January 6th for the 1100 miles passage to Sri Lanka. The forecast for the first days looked good, but things would turn out different, making this the most remarkable passage so far...
