We're back

Resort near Talaga, Langkawi

 

 

Greetings dear blog followers and a warm hullo from steamy Thailand. Well, this is my first blog for almost a year and so a short update is called for. Diana and I left the boat in Rebak Malaysia last year around the end of May and headed home. We moved into our place in Busselton having declined the tenants' request to extend their contract and what a good move that was. The original tenants as per the lease were a lovely couple from Perth who had a family crisis and were in need of a new start. Well, lovely couple from Perth get jobs driving across Australia as wide load security drivers and invite their son and his mate as our new tenants. A long story short the house is quickly deteriorating in the hands of these two and Mum's weekly visits arn't really helping. So we got back in time and the lesson is be very careful when putting your house in the hands of property managers who have 300 or so houses on their books, they really don't care.

So it took a while to sort out repairs and in no time it was July 23rd and Diana was booked on a flight back to Rebak, the boat and Motley. I was going to stay in Perth and get the house ready for short term rental and then fly back in October. As it happened, the process of preparing for short term rental is more complicated than it appears and so I was still in Perth when Diana flew back for Christmas 2013.

 

We had a lovely Christmas and were all ready to jump on a flight back to Rebak on January 16th to resume cruising when life threw your proverbial spanner into the mix. I had been using my time in Perth to get a comprehensive health check done and a little problem popped up. I remember it was January 3rd or 4th when I started seeing the gastro about sorting it out and I asked him could I still make the flight on the 16th. He looked at me in his pleasant and reassuring way and said, "you might have to put your plans on hold for a while". Anyway, long story short, it was a couple of spots of early stage cancer of the oesophagus but we got it before it had developed into sub mucosal stage and therefore before radical surgery was required. Once things had become clear Diana flew back to take over Motley minding and I was to come up within a few weeks once the all clear was finally given.

That, however, wouldn't be until late in April. April is a big month for us. We have our anniversary on the 6th and then on the 26th it was Diana's big, special birthday that ends in a 0. The only clue I can give is that now bus travel will now be cheaper for one of us. So I asked Dr Spiro Raftopulous if we could postpone the check up till the end of April and he said fine, see you on the 1st of May.

So dear readers, on the 11th of March I did the old Air Asia horror back to Rebak with the aim of getting the boat out of Rebak marina and to at least have a taste of Thailand. Which we have done. And now I'll tell you a bit about that if you are still awake.

 

Back on board

It was quite a joy to steer the Doc out of the marina. What had, at times, looked like a closed chapter in the great narrative of ones life had now flipped open to a new page. The Doc was in great shape and all praise to Diana who had been busy keeping up maintenance and adding improvements along the way. After refuelling in Telaga we poked our nose out around the island and were met with a 20 knot headwind for our run to Lipe and the waters of Thailand. So we did what all smart sailors do and we headed back and dropped the anchor. Next day we had more pleasant conditions and well before lunch we dropped anchor on the west side of the southern bay on Koh Lipe.

 

 

Koh Lipe is one of those islands in the run from Langkawi to Phuket that has got the tourist infection. The beachfront along the southern bay is a mess of bars, backpapers, bronze flesh and muffler free long tails. There is a strip of restaurants, massage joints and tourist junk shops leading up from the beach and it runs for about half a kilometre. We were sitting in one of the restaurants under what must be one of the great inventions of all time, the electric fan, and surveying our welcome back Thai menu. They are mostly photographic by design and have plastic sleeves which you thumb through doing your standard mental arithmetic at the same time. OK, divide by thirty. Main course 150 bht, salad 80 bht, cold beer 40 bht.....total 270 ht..... oz dollars about 9...The servings are big and the value is excellent. Welcome back to Thailand we said and clinked our frosty beers. Coming up........Koh Muk and the emerald cave.

 

Motley crew getting back into the cruising life