Tuesday 7th December 2021

We have been back in Thailand for a month and are staying in an apartment on the Boat Lagoon Marina, with Vega on a pontoon nearby. By now we’d expected to be exploring the beautiful islands around Phuket, but work on the boat that we thought would take a week or two looks like stretching out until the end of next week. In the meantime, here is what I wrote about the events of February and March of last year, but never quite got round to publishing ……

• 

• 

Saturday 15^th February to Wednesday 25^th March 2020

We flew back to the island of Langkawi in the northwest of Malaysia in mid-February 2020. Our plan was to spend a week or two cruising around Langkawi then to head up the west coast of Thailand to Phuket, taking four to six weeks and visiting some of the islands along the way, before returning to Malaysia and leaving Vega back in the boatyard in Langkawi. After that we had decided to take a break from the circumnavigation for the rest of 2020 and instead we would visit Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos for a month or two, travelling overland, before returning home to Bristol for the rest of the year. We were undecided as to whether we wanted to finish the circumnavigation or to ship Vega home on a cargo ship. We were both feeling somewhat weary of sailing and I felt especially nervous about the leg around South Africa with sometimes very dangerous seas and currents in the Mozambique Channel. The alternative route home via the Red Sea and the Med neither of us were keen to do.

Even before we left home Coronavirus had reared its ugly head in China. Was this all media hype and hysteria or something that might affect us? We weren’t even sure whether we should travel but, having spoken to our travel insurance company and looked at FCO advice, we decided to go for it. 

On the 13 hour flight from Heathrow to Kuala Lumpur our neighbour, a Chinese Malaysian business man, thoroughly wiped around the window and his seat and table with antibacterial gel. He apologised for wearing a face mask and hoped that it didn’t cause offence, but his sister had made him promise. Since he had flown out to London from KL only a week earlier we decided if any of us had the virus it was more likely to be him.

Sunday 16^th February on – Langkawi

After a short flight onwards from KL to Langkawi island we arrived jet-lagged and exhausted. The heat and humidity were overwhelming and by midday it was like being in a sauna. We collapsed into our Airbnb and tried to catch up on our sleep although the air conditioning was struggling to cope, as were we. When we finally emerged, the nearby resort of Cenang Beach was busy with scantily clad westerners being served in shops and restaurants by Muslim women in hijabs, and the beach was crowded and littered with plastic and cigarette butts. The sea was warm, murky and uninviting. We took refuge in an air conditioned cafe and escaped back to our secluded and peaceful Airbnb, hidden away along a lane in the countryside.

With Vega back in the water from the boatyard, we spent a few nights in Rebak marina where we were delighted to meet up with Reto and Angela on She San who we’d first met in the Caribbean some three years ago, and hadn’t seen since Fiji. Two of the Indonesian rally boats were also at the marina, Entice and Hylite, and I was thrilled to go aboard Historic Vessel Vega (a classic ship which sails around the more remote Indonesian islands distributing medical and school supplies).

Monday 24^th to Thursday 27^th February – Penang

Hugh had been worrying about a lesion on his forehead that he thought might be a skin cancer (having had a squamous cell carcinoma removed from the back of his hand in Australia), so we caught the fast ferry down to the island of Penang for a few days to get it checked out by a dermatologist there (it was fine) and also to apply for a 60 day visa at the Thai Consulate. Whilst waiting for the visa to be processed we booked a cycling tour of the western, more remote, side of Penang with Eddie, an amusing Chinese Malay guide, through palm oil and durian tree plantations, and past fish farms to a run-down fishing village. The Malay government subsidises fishing, so if you own a fishing boat you get a monthly subsidy which is just about enough to live off and you don’t actually need to go out fishing. 

In Georgetown, the old historic part of Penang, we took a rickshaw ride around to look at the street art. Whereas most of the rickshaw drivers are scrawny and look undernourished we ended up with Aslan, the only overweight rickshaw driver in Georgetown. He sweated, puffed and panted as he slowly cycled us around the narrow streets and when he stopped and lit up a cigarette we became concerned he might collapse with a heart attack.

Friday 28^th February on – Langkawi Yacht Club

Back in Langkawi, we spent almost a week in the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club Marina getting on with boat jobs. There were a large number of yachts up for sale here, their owners presumably not wanting to face the challenge of sailing across the Indian Ocean. There were also half a dozen super yachts, owned by billionaires from around the world and mostly registered in the Cayman or Cook Islands, being kept immaculate by their crew and ready to be taken to where the owners might choose to use them next. Several of these are available for charter too for US$70,000 a week upwards.

• 

We were eventually ready to go to Immigration and Customs at the ferry terminal to check out of Malaysia. A camera was set up to read the temperature of new arrivals to Malaysia as a screening for Coronavirus. The Immigration officers were, as usual, friendly and helpful as we filled in all the various forms. As we approached the Customs department four officers were sitting in a row, joking and laughing, I found myself sneezing loudly several times (into my elbow as advised) and the atmosphere suddenly changed to one of stern seriousness. Hugh completed the forms whilst I cowered as far from them as I could. We left quickly. There is increasing anxiety here about Coronavirus. People were no longer shaking hands, hugging or kissing. Everyone’s plans are on hold. A sailing rally to West Sumatra that several yachts we knew were hoping to join may be cancelled. 

Saturday 7^th March on – Thailand 

After anchoring for two nights in Telaga Bay, where we had the chance to say goodbye to our friends on Impi and She San, we finally left Malaysia early in the morning, initially accompanied by dolphins, heading north to anchor by Sunset Beach on Koh Lipe, the most southerly island on the west coast of Thailand. A line of tuktuk drivers were waiting for a fare, finding life hard now that the tourist numbers were dropping, particularly the Chinese who usually form a significant proportion of the visitors here. It was only a short walk to the main resort of Pattaya Beach on the opposite side of the island where the beach looked busy with plenty of bodies sprawled out in the sun. The beach front was lined by bars and restaurants with narrow streets leading off, tourists and mangy dogs wandering around, and with clothes and souvenir shops, tattoo and massage parlours, dive shops and supermarkets selling mainly crisps, beer and pot noodles.

We eventually found the 7Eleven which sold SIM cards, and a vegetable shop where we bought onions, mango, papaya, bananas and a cabbage as well as a loaf of bread. Back to the by now crowded Sunset Beach where longtail boats were pulled up on the sand. We headed back to Vega to watch the sunset from the bow with a cold beer. 

Sunday 8th March

The islands along this coastline are dramatic, with sheer rock faces arising vertically from the sea. Our next overnight stop was at Ko Phetra, a small uninhabited island where we dropped anchor on the east side. We had it to ourselves apart from two small longtail fishing boats and, after some worry as the wind changed direction and threatened to blow us onto a lee shore, we eventually fell asleep to the whooping shrieks of sea birds. In the morning we took the dinghy ashore and walked along the narrow strip of beach to the sound of cicadas, the track of a large lizard and hermit crabs in the sand, plus the usual heaps of plastic rubbish on the high water line: flipflops, plastic bottles, fishing tackle, floats and a lobster cage. 

Another 25 miles north was the island of Koh Muk where we had arranged to meet friends Anders and Katharina on Carpe Mare. After a Thai curry ashore with them, we were up early the following morning and tied the yachts to buoys just outside the Emerald Cave, before most of the tourists arrived. Swimming through the 80 meter long, dark tunnel with bats in the roof above, you emerge to a small white sand beach encircled by high, steep cliffs overgrown with tropical foliage. Unfortunately the state of tide wasn’t right for the water to be the advertised emerald, so we had to put up with a muted turquoise.

Our next destination was to be Ko Phi Phi, a long, hot motor 40 miles northwest. On the way we diverted to pass by Ko Phi Phi Le where the movie ‘The Beach’ was filmed in 1999. It is a small, sheer, rocky island but a narrow inlet allows entry to a bay where there is a small sandy beach. It is no longer permitted to land on the beach because of the excessive number of tourists who have already caused damage to the area and to the marine life, so access is cordoned off with floats, but there were still a dozen or so small tourist boats clustered around the small bay. Before it was closed in 2018 the 250 metre long beach had been receiving up to 5000 visitors a day and 80% of the coral reefs surrounding the bay had been destroyed by boat traffic. In order to film The Beach, 20th Century Fox had bulldozed and landscaped the natural beach setting of Ko Phi Phi Le to make it more ‘paradise-like’, widening the beach, flattening sand dunes and planting coconut palms. Prior to filming, environmental activists had demonstrated outside the hotel where Leonardo de Caprio was staying. Afterwards 20th Century Fox was taken to court and it was ruled that the filming had permanently damaged the environment. Damages were awarded against them.

The larger island of Ko Phi Phi, where we anchored for the night is popular and busy with loud music blaring from the shore, so we decided to stay on board and catch up on the next episode of ‘Game of Thrones’. In the morning, friends Priscilla and Michael on Hylite came over to say hello, before we continued on to Ao Chalong in the south of Phuket island to check into Thailand. Maria & Maurice were already at anchor in the crowded bay and we enjoyed a relaxing supper with them onboard Cattiva. 

Thursday 12th March

Officially checking in to Thailand through the Harbour Office, Immigration and Customs it was all face masks and hand gel, as it was in the modern air-con supermarket with its expensive imported foods from Australia and Japan. I forgot and shook the hand of our particularly helpful Grab taxi driver then had to apologise and reach for the hand gel. I lay awake that night fretting about coronavirus… might I have caught it from the taxi driver?

Friday 13th to Tuesday 17th March

Nai Harn bay on the SW corner of Phuket is a small resort with a pretty beach, white box-like rooms climbing up the hillside, the bay surrounded by dry yellow hills and scrubby green trees on the headlands which stretch out at the entrance to the bay. Entice, Kitty Hawk and Ultimo were amongst the dozen or so yachts already at anchor in the bay, although Ultimo was due to be shipped back to Rotterdam the next week. There is the Wat Nai Harn Temple with an ancient Buddhist monastery, just behind the beach.

We spent five days here and decided to continue north up to the Surin and Similan Islands with our friends on Entice, Kitty Hawk and Sartori 2, where there is fabulous scuba diving. Whereas it’s usually difficult to get a permit to dive here, now, ‘thanks’ to coronavirus, the tourist numbers are so low it wouldn’t be a problem, although there still seemed to be plenty of bronzed Russian tourists working on their tans on the beach. Simon from Aloha Dive was glad to service and refill our dive tanks – a young German guy running a dive shop he told us that his business was really suffering. We headed to the Big C, a huge modern supermarket, to provision for our trip to these isolated islands. There was a long aisle of loo rolls here – we were hearing stories of no toilet paper left in any of the supermarkets in the U.K. 

I was beginning to feel quite uncertain about what to do. What if we got ill with coronavirus on Vega? Should we go home? Would we be able to get a flight home when we wanted to? A message from my son –  ‘Please come home’.

In the meantime most of Europe was closing down, although the U.K. had seemed to be allowing the virus to spread rampantly. My daughter working at a print museum in Estonia could no longer get back into Poland, where her husband was, since Poland had shut its borders. My sister’s operation for a hip fracture was cancelled because of fears about the virus, leaving her in pain.

The next day the FCO started to advise against all non-essential travel overseas and Malaysia closed its borders, so we would no longer be able to leave Vega in the boatyard there as planned. 

Wednesday 18th March

We finally make the decision to leave Thailand and return home whilst we still could. We had no idea how long the virus would drag on and, although we could stay on the boat, countries around the world were closing their borders, including to yachts. So far Thailand was agreeing to extend visas for foreigners but we didn’t know for how long. We would need refills of our cylinders of cooking gas, it might become increasingly unsafe to go ashore to buy food and although we have a water maker it is slow and we usually refill our water tanks ashore, and so although many of our cruising friends had decided to stay on wherever they were, we made the decision to return home. I’d go a bit gaga being stuck on our small boat with just Hugh to talk to, following events at home from afar, worrying about everyone at home. I’d become quite anxious about the whole thing, following it obsessionally on the news. The numbers reported in Thailand were still low but that might well have been because people were not being tested.

We booked to haul out in a nearby boatyard on April 7^th and I booked flights home for April 11^th. In the meantime we sailed north along the west coast of Phuket, with Satori 2 to meet up with Entice and Kitty Hawk in Nai Yang Bay, just south of Phuket International Airport. There were still lots of people on the beach there and from the anchorage we could see plenty of flights arriving and leaving. On Satori 2 Tibby and Rusty’s son Tom and his girlfriend Patricia, who had been staying with them, were desperately trying to get flights back to Australia. Back in the U.K. my brother Rob was now working from home as offices had closed, and schools were due to shut down on the Friday. On the internet were endless COVID-19 jokes and funny YouTube videos. We had been learning how to wash our hands properly.

Thursday 19^th March

Qantas, Virgin and JetStar were about to cancel all their flights. At great expense Patricia, who is not Australian, had managed to get on a flight to Australia  – the deadline for non-Aussies being today. Tom was still trying to get a flight home. Entice had decided to put their boat in the boatyard and return to Australia. Kitty Hawk were undecided and were still hoping to sail down to Malaysia to wait until the border reopened.

In Thailand massage parlours had closed as had bars, gyms, theatres, cinemas, schools and universities, and although restaurants and markets were still open, in Nai Yang bay they were empty, deserted by customers. Restrictions had been introduced on foreigners entering the country. 

We decided to bring our haul out date forward to March 24^th and rebooked our flight for 25th.  

Friday 20^th to 24^th March

Phuket Premier Boatyard is in the northeast of the island, so we slowly made our way back south around Phuket island, anchoring at night on the way, passing resorts which were now deserted. A final lunch with Ingvar and Tuija who were having work done on their boat, Hakuna Matata, in the Boat Lagoon Marina (they later flew back to Sweden on one of the very last evacuation flights out). Colin and Izzy had decided to remain in Thailand and live on board their boat Endorphin Beta (in order to qualify for visas which allow them to stay a year they had to enrol as students at the University – Izzy studying quantum physics, or so she claimed!). Our Australian friends all decided to return home and Entice, Kitty Hawk and Satori 2 were out of the water and in the boatyard before Vega. We finished clearing up, stowing the sails and left a dehumidifier on board in the hope everything wouldn’t get too mouldy. Bia would be keeping an eye on Vega and arrange any work that needed to be done. She had sun-netting spread over the boat to protect the decks and hull, and washed and polished her whilst we were away. 

Wednesday 25^th & 26^th March

We left the airport hotel at 3am to catch an AirAsia flight to Bangkok. Departures at Bangkok airport was practically empty apart from the British Airways check-in desk, and among the passengers queuing were feelings of both tension and relief. The great majority of the flights on the Departures board had been cancelled and there was a long queue at the stand-by desk, but all the flights out were already fully booked. There was no hot food offered on our flight, only an almost inedible sandwich and no alcohol, but no-one complained. I was incredibly anxious about the flight and about catching coronavirus and terribly tired after so little sleep the last few nights. 

Back in the U.K. the country was by now in full lockdown but we could get a National Express coach back from Heathrow to Bristol, the driver especially cheery, full of Dunkirk Spirit, then a taxi through strangely deserted streets. Home at last, my lovely brother Rob had left us bags of food at the flat, and so we went into two weeks of quarantine in a much changed world.