4th to 17th November 2021

We are back in Thailand. When we left Vega on hardstanding in the Phuket Premier Boatyard at the end of March 2020 we thought that we would be away for maybe six months but, after almost 20 months, we are finally back.

Thailand is now open and is keen to encourage tourism, especially to destinations like Phuket which rely so much on tourist income, and so they devised the Sandbox scheme to supposedly makes it much easier to visit. Even so it was a mammoth task to get all the paperwork together… we had to apply for a 60 day visa, obtain travel insurance against falling ill with Covid, book to stay in a designated hotel for seven nights, show evidence of double vaccination against Covid, arrange a fit to fly PCR test 72 hours before departure and apply for a Certificate of Entry. It took several weeks, as did packing and emptying our house to rent it out again, and we were still clearing out final rubbish as the taxi arrived to take us to the airport bus. 

Checking in at Heathrow Airport was absolute chaos with long, slowly moving queues of increasingly anxious passengers as everyone’s paperwork was painfully checked through. So our flight was late leaving and transfer at Doha ‘The Worlds Best Airport’ involved a hurried and stressful jog between terminals at 2 am, with no time to shop at the world-class, designer-label boutiques. By contrast arriving at Phuket airport was smooth and streamlined, from the initial checking that our paperwork was in order through to having the first PCR test at the airport, all accompanied by charming Thai greetings. At the hotel we had to wait in our room for the results of our PCR tests which were back within four hours, after which we were free to enjoy the delights of the hotel and of Phuket.

Thailand is hot and humid and it has been raining a lot, even though it is usually the end of the rainy season by now and we should be having glorious dry, sunny days. Whilst we’ve been away from Vega a family of rats (we were told they were mice, but by the size of their poo we think it must be rats) have moved in and have been gnawing and chewing their way round the boat, pissing and crapping as they go. We are assured that Bea, who has been looking after the boat in our absence, has caught them all now and the boat is rat free. If not I have an app called Pest Repel that supposedly makes life unpleasant for them by emitting a frequency that they find very uncomfortable, so they will decide to move on. Once we are in the marina we’ll have to give Vega a good clean, inside and out, and get the upholstery professionally cleaned and repaired.

We were supposed to be going back into the water yesterday and motoring down to the Boat Lagoon marina (despite being a sailing boat we have no sails up at the moment) where we’ll get more work done on the boat. Having drained all the old diesel from the tank (well, two guys from the yard did that dirty job) and replaced it with fresh diesel, the engine would not start. Hugh and Jittakorn, the marine engineer, (I think mostly the latter) spent two further days working on the problem. They changed the impeller, cleaned the injector, checked the injector pump and we bought new batteries. Towards the end of the second day, after endless fiddling, checking, draining off more diesel and finally spraying with Quick-Start (known in Australia as Start Ya Bastard – I joke not), the engine finally started.  We were all whooping and cheering as our Yanmar engine purred away again and Jittakorn had a huge grin on his face.

So Vega has now been towed down to the water’s edge and tomorrow will be launched near to high tide.

Apart from all the rubbish weather and work on the boat, we spent most of the first week relaxing in a rather nice hotel with a big pool. And it didn’t rain every day then. So it hasn’t been all bad.