Goodbye Asia!

Wednesday 6th January 2010

The time has come for us to say our final fairwell to Asia as we prepare to leave for the Maldives in the next couple of days. We've enjoyed the beautiful New Year Fetivities here in Patong Bay in Phuket, Thailand with hundreds of fireworks and Thousands of Thai lanterns being released from the beach. My cousin David has joined us for a few days to celebrate the New year and we've enjoyed relaxing and making the most of our last few days here.

Blue Moon is once again stocked up with enough food to feed a family of five for a year...we never learn but who knows what we'll crave while hundreds of miles from the nearest market! Our water line is once again rediculously low but most importantly we feel prepared for surviving self sufficiantly for the next five months if neccessary!

Our first leg is roughly 1500 nautical miles to the island of 'Uligan' in the Northern Maldives which should take around 14 days. We'll spend a week or so there and then sail the 1000 miles to Salalah in Southern Oman. We'll be sending updates to our Cruising log via the radio so to follow us just click on the link on the right hand side of this page.

Family Time!

Monday 14th December

We're back in Thailand after saying our final fairwell to Malaysia and have been enjoying cruising the beautiful waters of Phang Nga Bay for the last six weeks. Caroline's mum and younger brother flew out to phuket from England for a few weeks visit and for the first time we experienced cruising with a full boat. The rolling and creaking took a while for everyone to get used to, something we've become completely oblivious to meant a few sleepless nights for those who are used to sleeping in the peace and quiet of a house!

Keeping busy we explored many of Phang Nga bay's Hongs and caves by Kayaks and discovered some great beaches for snorkelling and just relaxing. During the third week of their visit we met up with Caroline's older brother 'Peter' and his new wife 'Lisa' who were also out in Thailand for their two week honeymoon. We spent two days with them in Krabi province on mainland Thailand, taking them out for a sail the first day then hiring a Jeep the second to drive out to one of the national park's in Krabi's Rainforest.

A bit of a family overload for Jimmy as this was the first time he'd met any of them but it all went perfectly and we were lucky to have great weather the whole time. Yesterday we took Tom to the airport for a final fairwell and once again after five weeks we're alone on Blue Moon. We've hired a car for two days to stock up at Phukets great supermarkets as we prepare to leave in January for the Med. So once again it's back to trying to figure out what we'll need on board to last us roughly four months especially for our long beat up the Red sea where we'll have little opportunity to replenish our fresh supplies.