Broken Bows and Broken Toes
Trip Start
Jan 05, 2007
1
8
9
Trip End
Feb 18, 2007
Ao Chalong, Thailand
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
In the evening we had the bay to ourselves again and had a peaceful night, but the next morning, when Martha was on anchor duty she noticed the whole front rail on the bow of the Silver Fern had been torn loose and was hanging pitifully off to one side! A large tourist boat must have crashed down on top of us when we were on the island the day before. A miserable start to the day. Bryce pulled out the duct tape, and off we went, disgusted with Phi Phi Ley and hoping for better times ahead.
We did have a lovely, long sail to Ao Chalong, one of the towns and marinas on Phuket Island. Martha put on some bluegrass music, and we all kept watch over lunch, reading, and suntanning, or what I liked to call, "sail and bake". We anchored at the Aquarium at Panwa Bay, where M & B's friends Liam and Annie were also anchored on Gone With the Wind. We had a nice time here for a couple of nights, as there was a lovely promenade with small food and clothing stalls, all Muslim, and the perfect little bar run by an Englishman. At the top of the hill we watched the sunset on the terrace of a restaurant with Liam and Annie. Unfortunately, this anchorage was extremely rolly, so I had two sleepless nights. When I woke up the second day, I stumbled out of bed only to break and/or dislocate and/or sprain my little toe (it felt like all three). Now I had a black and blue, throbbing, bulbous appendage on my foot! Hard with flip flops, water, and all the things that stick out all over the place on sailboats. We all moved the next evening to a calmer spot around the corner, Panwa Bali, and enjoyed a long night of drinks and dancing on the deck of Gone With the Wind.
The next few days were sort of a blur of chores, running through the streets of Phuket (Bryce running, me hobbling, and Martha darting in between the two), trying to find this part and that part for the boat. We did a huge grocery shopping trip and found bamboo poles for the canvas sun shade on the Silver Fern, had a hyena-like laughing, crazy taxi driver named Eddie Murphy, and collapsed every evening at our favorite spot, The Beach Bar and Restaurant, run by a Thai fishing family. This place was lovely. It hadn't been completely taken over by resorts yet, and was simple and heavenly. There's not much better in the world than having dinner with friends, digging your feet into the sand and watching the sun go down on another perfect evening. Now I was really starting to relax......
