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Date: 30 Mar 2011 11:38:39
Title: Decisions - Yacht Haven Marina, Phuket, Thailand
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08:10.221N  98:20.406E
 
February 27,  2011 - March 12, 2011
 
After the Maloneys left, we decided it was time to get down to business.  The business of decision-making.  We did a good job with the procrastination thing, but there comes a time on a sailboat when longer-term plans must be made - if not for any other reason than it makes shorter-term planning easier.  So, what to do?  To give ourselves time to think, we spent a few more days anchored off the nearly-naked Russian filled Nai Harn Beach before slowly making our way back to Yacht Haven Marina via our favorite mooring near Koh Phi Phi Don (Pee Pee) and our favorite anchorage near Koh Roi.  When our heads weren't sweating rivers into our eyes and we could think clearly (usually in the early morning before the heat arrived in earnest around 11am), we started making plans.
 
First order of business:
Which way to go next season?  Thailand to Sri Lanka to India to the Gulf of Aden, Red Sea, Suez Canal and the Mediterranean?  Or Thailand to Sri Lanka to Chagos to Mauritius to Reunion to South Africa?  In January, when things started to go bad in Egypt, we thought hmmmmm....the Suez Canal could be a problem for those heading to the Med this season.  Then when Somali pirate activity against cargo ships spiked up in late January and February we thought....well, the pirates might be going after the freighters, but there's been no sailing yachts taken on the route from India to the Red Sea.  Granted, last season there was an English couple taken off a yacht and held for over a year by Somali pirates, but they were sailing well west and south of the India to Red Sea route when they were taken.  The same was true for a second yacht taken last season.  In January and early February, when we were saying good-bye to friends headed off to the Mediterranean, there still had not been any yachts taken by pirates on the India to Red Sea route.  There had been plenty of cargo ship attacks along that route, but no yachts.  So, as late as early February, we were still leaning toward sailing to the Mediterranean through pirate alley starting January of 2012.
 
Then, as you know, all hell broke loose on the favored yacht route from India to the Red Sea.  We didn't know the people on American sailboat Quest, but many of our friends did.  Based on various sources, we estimate the average number of sailboats making their way around the world at any given time to be about 350.  Of those, about 150-200 usually sail from Thailand to the Mediterranean each year.  That's a pretty small boating community, so it's no surprise that almost everyone knows everyone.  We don't know the Danish crew on the second yacht, ING, that was taken in February, but again, some of our friends know them and we remember seeing the boat in the Malacca Strait along the Malaysian coast.  The news of the two attacks and the murder of Quest's crew pretty much rocked the boating world.  For us, and many other boaters in a similar position, it made the decision on where to go next season very easy - it'll be South Africa or bust.
 
Below are a few excerpts from emails sent by friends that planned to go to the Med this year.  Some of them turned around or changed their destination mid-stream.  Others persevered and made it safely.  By the time we received much of this information, we had already decided not to go the Med route, but we found these accounts riveting none-the-less.
 
Esprit, an American boat with husband Chay, wife Katie and son Jamie on board left Thailand en route to the Mediterranean in January.  Five hundred miles and nearly four days into the worst of the pirate plagued waters between India and the Red Sea, they decided to turn around and head back to India.  Here's an excerpt from their email account:
"We turned around 500 miles out at sea when we heard that our friends on Quest had been killed.  Our reasoning was that the pirates had now raised the bar from the taking of hostages to death, we had damaged our prop in Cochin [India] and our motoring speed was thus reduced by over 20%, and the winds were light and the seas almost flat, giving too much advantage to the pirates.  When we looked out at the weather there was no indication that the winds were going to pick up.  With Jamie on board we thought this was too much risk for us to take."
 
Later in the same email, they recount a few scary moments of their own:
"Some thoughts on the last 7 days....1000 miles and where did we go?..right back to where we started from!...it used to be that we were very concerned about the freighters and the weather when we were at sea.  Now the watch was all about looking for pirates .   Because the freighters usually didn't keep a good watch we had to be worried about being run down, but now the freighters keep an excellent watch and are worried when they see us (a small boat) because we might be a pirate...we used to not have a second thought about a fishing boat except for how to stay out of his fishing nets, but now our first thought is that it is a pirate mother ship....for example, when were about 180 miles off the Indian coast on our return through the Lakshadweep Islands, at dusk, near where two other pirate attacks have taken place, we
noticed a ferry boat stopped completely which was odd, heard some chatter on the radio, and then saw the ferry boat proceed south.  We then spotted a black fishing boat at dusk that was on an intercept course with us.  We implemented our security procedures - changed course, sped up, closed down the boat except for one hatch, had radios ready to issue distress calls, and monitored its position.  Chay & Jamie were in the cockpit navigating and preparing for an attack, while Katie was below manning the radios.  After about 30 minutes we were confident that he was not following us and thus not a pirate and we stood down.  Katie was scared to death!  We assume the ferry had stopped to assess the fishing boat as well."
 
"The political and piracy situation continues to worsen.  As many of you know Scott & Jean Adam on S/V Quest were killed less than 400 miles from our position when we made the decision to turn around.  They were gentle people whom we cruised with in Tonga and New Zealand and liked very much.  Two days after we turned around and in a location near where we would have been if we had kept going, S/V ING was taken by pirates with 3 kids on board.  They had been in Galle, Sri Lanka with us on the concrete wharf!  We know we made the right decision to return to India." 
 
Esprit has since returned to India, then sailed safely to the Maldives, where they are waiting for a cargo ship to pick up Espirit and ship it to the Med.  Chay, Katie and Jamie will fly to the Med.
 
The next excerpt is from an Englishman who single-handed his boat to the Med (for safety reasons, his family flew while he sailed).  Aden is a city on the coast of Yemen, and is one of the usual stops for boats traveling through the Gulf of Aden into the Red Sea.
"I left Aden last night midnight as mass protests on street and gunfire around. Army out with 50 cal on back of jeeps...I was the only boat there and feeling like the last tomato in a salad. I managed to get my passport back from immigration in the afternoon, and just thought..I'm going...stopped by a port control launch with Kalashnikov bloke on front...port control ordered me back to anchorage 5 times. I refused, saying that there was gunfire on the street, I'm a UK boat and I want to leave now. After half an hour he called off the dogs and gave me permission to leave and asked if I would please come back to Aden and its not always like that!!!!"
 
This last excerpt is from another boater who traveled through the Gulf of Aden: 
"Unfortunately, we have had 4 incidents along the Corridor in less than 24 hours. Last night we saw a ship being attacked not 5 miles from our position. Flares going off and then a fast moving boat with a red light headed in our direction - then light went dark. Enough for us to call MARLO who got US Warship to speed in our direction. We had Helo's and an escort the rest of the night. Incredibly scary. Then today we spotted a dhow with 2 skiffs in the middle of the corridor again 6 miles from our position...and even though they get reported, the resources are too thin to respond in time! And at 12:30 sailing yacht _____ (USA) & sailing yacht ______ (USA) reported a merchant vessel was being attacked again in the corridor only 38 miles ahead of us. It is NOT good here. It is very very bad."
 
All of the above excerpts are relatively old and all the boats mentioned are now in safe waters.
 
Back to long-term planning...
Once our decision was made to head for South Africa next season, we researched the recommended route and timing to take advantage of the best winds and avoid tropical storms.  It's a little tricky because we will be crossing back over the equator and moving from the northeast trade winds into the doldrums, then the southeast trade winds.  The route and timing will go something like this:
January, 2012 - Thailand to Sri Lanka - 1,100 miles - about 7 days
March, 2012 - Sri Lanka to Chagos - 836 miles - about 4 days
April, 2012 - Chagos to Mauritius - 1,145 miles - about 8 days
May, 2012 - Mauritius to Reunion - 128 miles - 1 day
Here the recommendations disagree.  Depending on who we choose to believe, we would either sail from Reunion to Richard's Bay, South Africa in June or October.  The trip is 1,500 miles and probably the most difficult leg of the Indian Ocean crossing due to the Agulhas Current, which runs south along the east coast of South Africa.  A south-running current is good, except that the Agulhas current is extremely strong and southwesterly squalls often blow up quickly causing huge wind-against-current waves.  We'll need to take extra care when crossing the Agulhas Current to get to the east coast of South Africa, but we've got plenty of time to work all that out.  In general, our goal is to round the Cape of Good Hope and reach Cape Town on the west coast of South Africa by December, 2012.  The best time to cross the South Atlantic is January, so we would plan to leave Cape Town January of 2013 to arrive back in the Caribbean some time in the spring of 2013.  As always, the sailing caveat applies:  things can and will change - but for now, this is our long-term plan.
 
By the way, no need to worry, this route should keep us well away from pirates.
 
 
Second order of business:
What to do in the short term?  Knowing we have a long and challenging ocean crossing in our future, much preparation is needed - but we'll do most of it in the fall.  For now, we decided to spend a bit of time in Yacht Haven Marina where Storyteller and air conditioning could be found.  We also decided to take advantage of the time we have between now and our trip home for the summer (6/17/11 - 10/13/11) to do some land travel around Thailand and Vietnam and Cambodia.  In fact, I'm typing this in a hotel room in Sukhothai, Thailand after having spent several days in Chiang Mai, but more on all that another time.  For now, let's just say we have a few new experiences under our belt including living through our first earthquake (don't worry, it was relatively minor), learning to cook like a Thai, and viewing more images of Buddha (sitting, standing, walking, reclining) in a single day than we previously thought possible. 
 
We decided to scrap the idea of hauling Harmonie at the Phuket Boat Lagoon boatyard for bottom painting and hull polishing, and will instead have that done next November or December.  Our Thai visas are up in April, so we will return to Malaysia and Rebak Marina then.  Once there, we'll haul the boat and do some cursory bottom painting and hull polishing (enough to keep Harmonie happy while she sits in the water at Rebak marina until we return from home in October).  After doing the cursory bottom and hull work, or maybe before? we'll fly to Vietnam and Cambodia for a few weeks to see for ourselves what many of our friends have been raving about.  Yeah, so we still don't have the short term plan nailed down completely, but as Don likes to point out, 'you can't rush these things'.  At least the major decisions have been made and we have a goal and a plan for next season.  We suspect we won't be alone in our quest for South Africa.  Anyone who isn't shipping their boat to the Med will most likely be headed southwest with us back across the equator to the land of clockwise swirling water.
Anne
 
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