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| Perry at Ko Adang |
There is a
common debate on
cruising and sailing sites about whether 'anyone' can go cruising. On the one
hand are those who say that you should learn as much as you can before you go
and that you're just asking for trouble if you simply sail away in a boat. Then
there is the camp that says that you don't need a lot of knowledge and
experience and that you should just '
go now!'
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| A beach that's not inundated with tourists (at this moment) |
Bumfuzzle is probably the most
well-known example of the latter group. We enjoyed their blog as we were still in our boat contemplation days. They sailed around the world without a
lot of previous sailing experience and have said that if
they could do it,
anyone can. While they weren't
experienced sailors, and they served up every misstep to an online community that often howled with contempt,
Pat Schulte is (from reading between the self-deprecating lines) a pretty smart
guy, as well as knowing his way around a diesel engine.
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| Can you tell I liked Ko Adang? |
After six years of doing this, we
haven't found a clear answer to this question. We fell into a middle area: We had some sailing
experience (Matt more than I)--mostly Lake Michigan but none in true "blue water". We didn't go through
certification courses like some couples did. Matt is smart, handy, and good at
figuring things out. So far, so good.
We have met a number of boats that ended
up hitting reefs or, in one case, sinking. Some of these situations are just
bad luck but many turned out to have been preventable with a bit more knowledge. Even more likely
to scuttle a cruising adventure through monetary or will-power fatigue, is
lack of knowledge or preparation in fixing
all the many, many things that break on a boat. On most modern cruising boats,
you have to be a jack of all trades. Even if you have the money to pay someone
to fix your issues, chances are that you will end up someplace where there is
no one that can help you. Some folks just get frustrated with this and decide it's time to get back to land.
All of this begs the question,
even if you can 'just go' cruising and figure it out as you go along, would you
really want to? Our passage from Phuket (Thailand) to Malaysia illustrates how
unlike '
drinking cocktails and watching the sunset' cruising life can be. For
three straight days, we sailed pretty much the whole day and then when we
finally reached our destination, there would be something for Matt to fix.
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| Ko Racha Yai |
A 'Sh-tty' Day
The first day of our journey was
spent motor-sailing upwind and then having to deviate from Ko Phi Phi to Ko
Racha Yai because the winds kept pushing us too far off course. No anchoring is
allowed in Ko Racha Yai, so you have to pick up a mooring. They provide a half
dozen moorings, but when we arrived there were probably 60 boats clogging the
bay. Many were rafted up to the few boats on moorings, others were beached, and
others stood off while they unloaded passengers. It felt like looking for a parking space by endlessly circling the block in our old neighborhood in Chicago. We motored around for about an
hour before we got a mooring from a boat that was leaving.
Eventually almost
all the day boats left and the bay was peaceful again. Unfortunately, Matt still
had his work cut out for him. Conrad had clogged his toilet that morning and no
amount of plunging or rodding out from the outside was working. Matt took apart
the output hoses, trying to keep the most-foul-feces-ever off himself and all
over the bilge (and
mostly succeeding). Conrad kept apologizing as he
inhaled whiffs of poop and listened to Matt swearing. As it turned out, the
problem was the calcified build-up that forms in the hoses as uric acid
and saltwater combine. A horribly stinky stone-like substance narrows the output line and sometimes pieces crack off and block the hose.
Laurent at Just
Catamarans warned us about this six years ago, but we are still not willing to
switch to flushing with fresh water (it's just flipping a valve). As we get down to the
bottom of our water tank, with the parts needed to fix our water maker sitting
in Langkawi, it would be hard to justify flushing that fresh water down the
toilet (literally and figuratively).
Even after all that (including my
bleach wash down of everything), Matt
(who couldn't even have a beer because he was finishing up his
antibiotics from the
kidney stone removal) was
still up for exploring on shore. We found a not-too-expensive restaurant
serving decent Thai food and walked along the beach without the hordes of
people that were everywhere just hours before.
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| Ko Rok Nai |
The next few days were not quite
as 'full', but still included sailing all day followed by fixing things.
Conrad's toilet was unclogged but had developed a leak in two places, which
Matt was able to fix by disassembling the macerator unit and adding o-rings to a loose fitting joker valve (don't ask). Oh, and the freezer output had to be unclogged twice. These
days were followed by not-very-restful nights as we either rocked crazily
(visions of
Honiara), had mooring balls bouncing into the boat for half the
night, or experienced winds so strong that anything loose blew around the cockpit
as our boat did circles around the mooring.
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| Clown fish at Ko Rok Nok |
I suppose we need some of these days every now and then (but not too many, please) to help us appreciate those beautiful sunsets. On the plus side, we caught a
tuna, which will be sushi for dinner tonight and right now we are next to a beautiful set of
beaches. We plan to be in Langkawi within the next few days.
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| Ko Rok Nok eel |
