Season Four - The Plan

Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Fri 28 Jan 2011 06:03
Another year, another season aboard the good ship Harmonie.  This year, there will be no hard core ocean sailing passages, and lots of lollygagging around gorgeous Thailand anchorages.  Life is rough we know, but someone has to persevere. 
 
Here's the plan:
Complete a few minor boat projects and stock up for the season in duty-free Langkawi, Malaysia.
 
Day sail the short 150ish miles from Langkawi to Phuket, Thailand (we are already in Phuket at the moment....the blog is slightly behind, as usual).
 
Spend February and March leisurely sailing around the lovely islands off Thailand's west coast.
 
In early April, haul the boat at Phuket's Boat Lagoon Marina and have the bottom painted and the hull polished.  Notice that I wrote, "have the bottom painted and the hull polished" - meaning we don't plan to do it ourselves.  Remember what happened the last time Don attempted to paint the bottom??  Yeah, not pretty.
 
Once the work is completed, return the boat to the water, and leave it in Phuket's Boat Lagoon Marina while we fly to Vietnam and Cambodia for two or three weeks in April/early May.
 
Return to Thailand and spend another month cruising around Thailand's islands.
 
Day sail back to Langkawi, Malaysia in June and leave the boat at Rebak Marina again while we travel home for the summer.  We'll return to Langkawi sometime in October for the start of Season Five.
 
That's it in a nutshell.  We are really looking forward to enjoying more of Southeast Asia at a very leisurely pace.  I'm also happy to report that the weather has turned and the northeast monsoon is in full swing.  This doesn't mean torrential rains as the word monsoon implies, instead the northeast monsoon brings drier weather and a steady breeze from the northeast.  No more 95% humidity and 95 degrees.  Now we have a pleasant 87 degrees and enough breeze to keep sweat puddles from forming.  As the new t-shirt my sister Margy gave me for Christmas says, "Life is Good".
 
Up next:  Adventures in Langkawi Provisioning, or what is commonly known in boating circles as 'The Langkawi Scavenger Hunt'.  If buying groceries while living on a boat in Southeast Asia was as easy as dropping by Wegmans on the way home from work, where would the challenge be?
Anne