Crossing a Highway

Posted on January 16, 2016 by Jamie

Sophie encountered 40 ships today as we sailed into the main shipping lane that connects Europe and the Middle East with Asia on what we can only describe as an extraordinary day.

Our current position is 05 33.102n, 083.13.251e. We are sailing on a course of 263m at 7.5 knots under a full jib and reefed main with a 14 knot wind on our beam. We covered 174 miles on our noon-noon run, averaging 7.25 knots. Sri Lanka is just 105 miles to our northwest, and Male is 580 miles ahead of us.

The southern tip of Sri Lanka is 880 miles due west from the entrance to the Malacca Strait, creating an imaginary line that is the shortest distance for ships traveling to Singapore and China. We realized that Sophie had wandered into this highway a little after lunchtime when a cluster of 8 ships suddenly appeared on our AIS. The smallest one was 650 feet. We had clear weather and good visibility, so there was no immediate risk. We even spoke to a few of them on the radio.

But after 2 tankers passed well within a half mile on either side of us, Jenna and I did the math and realized that if we continued on our rhumb line course, we would have to cover 75 miles to cross the shipping lane. We would have these behemoths passing on either side of us well into the night while doing so. We decided instead to gybe and head 20 miles due south while we still had visibility to clear the traffic. It’s better to dash across a highway during daylight, right?

So I went up to the wheel and was waiting for the 1,050 foot tanker “Hyundai Titan” to overtake us a half mile to the south when the starboard fishing rod exploded with a hit.

FISH!!!!!!

This fellow had good timing. We were sailing at 8 knots under full main and jib, but Sophie’s crew went to work like a well-oiled machine. Jenna ran to the wheel and turned north to slow the boat and get us away from Mr. Hyundai. Hazel helped her on the winches. Leo went below and started the Yanmars. Rich clipped in and joined me on the transom with a gaff. Travis and Nic brought the other lines in. Kate grabbed a camera and passed up tools. The clutch on this rod’s reel was on its last legs, and I was reluctant to let someone else land the fish. I had just replaced the line with 300 meters of brand new 80lb braid, so this guy wasn’t going anywhere.

We landed a 13 pound bluefin tuna, and everyone on Sophie was happy about the team effort. As soon as the fish was on board, we executed the gybe and kept both diesels on as we sprinted across the highway for the next hour and a half.

Soon the ships were behind us and we resumed our rhumb line course. School ended, and Jenna played dice games with the youngsters in the aft cockpit while Rich and I sat up top and enjoyed the warmth of the late afternoon. We cut the fish into steaks and pan seared all of them for dinner, serving them up with red rice and salad. We had a hungry crew, and the fish was delicious.

Immediately after dinner, I joined Jenna up top for the start of her watch when a pod of dolphins decided to play off our bow. Two of the dolphins were babies, and Hazel insisted that they were twins and that she could understand what they were saying. Then the dolphins left just as the clouds shifted and the sky exploded into a deep tangerine rose color. Everyone became silent and let the color soak in. Then we went downstairs and watched the NFL Films DVD of Super Bowl XLIX. The Patriots won.

It was a pretty good day, as days go.

Ohhhhh …. Halfway There!

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Jamie

Sophie hit the halfway point between Phuket and the Maldives at 3:30 this morning, having covered 770 miles in exactly 4 and a half days at an average speed at a scooch over 7 knots for the entire distance. We have 750 to go. Kate, Rich, Nic, and I celebrated with a shared can of Coke while looking to see if a certain Journey song was on the flybridge music player. It wasn’t, so we had to sing a cappella.

Sophie’s current position is 06 15.572n, 085.51.538e. We are sailing on a course of 163m at a speed of 7 knots on a beam reach with a 10 knot apparent breeze. We have the jib out and a reef in the main. Sophie covered 164 miles in yesterday’s noon to noon run, but given our current speed, I assume we will beat that number today. We once again had the gennaker and full main out all day yesterday and then switched to the jib and reefed main for the night. We seem to have developed a pattern. We have motorsailed for less than 10 hours for the entire passage. This steady northerly simply doesn’t want to go away.

Kate and Nic did a watch together tonight, and they did quite well. Except for the fact that that they convinced themselves that the ships appearing and then disappearing on the screen 15 miles south of us were stealth pirate ships coming to get us. I explained that we were just north of the shipping lane between the Suez Canal and Singapore and that hundreds of ships were passing 50 miles south of us. They remained unconvinced, arguing that perhaps they were seeing pirate submarines instead.

We are just 240 miles from Sri Lanka. I can already sense the wild elephants, especially the baby ones. We will pass the southern coast of Sri Lanka on Sunday during the day, missing it by 40 miles. I doubt we will see it. Life is a series of tradeoffs.

The fishing program finally got in gear yesterday! We hooked our first mahi mahi, using a yellow hoochi lure on the rod with the reel that our friend Bill Walker gave us over the holidays. Unfortunately the fish was the size of Hazel’s forearm, so we let him go. Later that evening we pulled in our meatlines for the night and saw that something had crushed one of my new cedar tuna plugs. They are out there.

Rich and Nic saw a whale spout a few hundred meters from us. There are lots of flying fish. We haven’t seen a bird in four days. I assume that will change soon.

We had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, and for Friday Family Movie Night the kiddies watched a Lego documentary that their sister/future sister-in-law. Tonight we will barbecue pork loin on the grill. Yes, it’s that kind of passage.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Bay of Bengal

Posted on January 14, 2016 by Jamie

Sophie is currently in the middle of the entrance to the Bay of Bengal as we continue on this fast and uneventful passage. Sophie covered 168 miles from noon to noon, for an average speed of 7 knots.

It is 4:00 AM Sophie time. We will change our ship’s clock today because we have traveled so far west that sunrise is now at 7:30 AM and sunset is at 7:30 PM. Our current position is 06 45.228n, 088.28.666e. We are sailing at 6.1 knots on a course of 262m with an 11 knot breeze slightly aft of our beam. The wind and waves picked up a bit yesterday afternoon, so we tucked a reef into the main around 2:00 PM and kept it there throughout the night until I came onto my shift just now. Even with the reef in, we were hitting 10+ knots of boat speed in 15 knots apparent on a broad reach. But the waves were 2+ meters and steep, so having the reef in gave us an easy motion with no stress on the boat or crew. It was a gentle and uneventful night.

We are 905 miles from our destination of Male, and we have arranged for an agent to bring government officials to the boat to help us clear into the country when we arrive on Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning. We are only 394 miles from Sri Lanka. The Indian weather service is forecasting no storms and consistent weather for the next 48 hours, and the longer term weather models are showing more of the same. It looks like we picked a great time to leave.

I feel like I am on vacation with so many crew on board. I slept for 8 hours last night before my sunrise shift. Every time I am about to do one of the chores I normally do on a passage, I turn around to find someone is already on it. I go to chop up vegetables for the chili? Kate and Nic are already on it. I go to do the dishes and empty the dishwasher? Rich and Travis already beat me to it.

I could get used to this.

Jenna and the kiddies had an excellent day at Sophie School with no meltdowns. The kids had a great attitude, and Leo even stood his sunset shift. I literally mean “stood” after I gently reminded him that being on watch doesn’t mean you lie down on the flybridge and read your Kindle.

Still no fish, but we only had the meatlines out for half the day yesterday. I didn’t want to deal with landing a fish with a rod during 10 knots of rock and roll.

Dinner last night was chili. Tonight we will eat spaghetti and meatballs, unless we land that fish.

I just completed reading Elvis Costello’s autobiography “Unfaithful Music.” I like the fact that one of my favorite singers is married to one of my dad’s favorite singers.

Overall Sophie’s crew has fallen into the rhythm of a passage. We eat. We sleep. We hang out. We do school. We stand watches. I had forgotten how much I love this life, and how lucky we are to be living it.

Sailing Along Quite Nicely

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Jamie

Nothing new to report after another uneventful 24 hours. Sophie covered 190 miles from noon to noon, averaging 7.9 knots of speed with the gennaker up during the day and the jib at night. 190 miles is considered a good day, even for a heavy cat like Sophie.

It is 3:00 AM Sophie time. Current position is 07 20.733n, 091.32.188e. We are sailing at 7.3 knots on a course of 270m with an 11 knot breeze slightly ahead of our beam. We have been on the same starboard tack for the entire 60 hours since we left Phuket. The wind died a bit in the afternoon so we ran an engine for a couple of hours to keep our speed up. We still have 330 gallons of fuel on board (including 2 fuel bladders on deck that we are trying out), which is enough for us to motor on both engines for the 1,090 miles between us and our destination of Male.

We are 560 miles from Sri Lanka, 708 miles from India, and 866 miles from Bangladesh. It’s kind of cool to see these countries on the same chart as Sophie.

Dinner last night was barracuda and Spanish mackerel in a coconut milk ginger sauce with bok choy, red rice, and lemonade. The Germans made apfulkuchen for dessert. The fish was from the freezer because we had no luck on the first day of our fishing program. At one point we did see a school of dolphins tear through our lures, causing some big fish following us to jump into the air. At least there are fish out here.

Sophie School had its first day. Leo was a rock star, and Hazel had a couple of transition issues. Today will be better.

We are basically a third of the way done with our passage. I couldn’t imagine an easier trip. There is no swell, small wind waves, and a consistent light northerly that keeps pushing us along. We have barely started, and I am already beginning to regret the end of the passage.

More tomorrow …

Sophie is Wicked Fast Again

Posted on January 12, 2016 by Jamie

Sophie has covered 265 miles in her first 35 hours on our passage from Phuket to the the Maldives, averaging over 7.5 knots of boat speed over the first part of our 1,500 mile journey. That’s right, Sophie is on the road again. Sorry for not updating the blog over the last 2 months. We’ve been crazy busy with a side trip to Cambodia and Laos, a 2 week haulout where we fixed multiple systems and painted the bottom, a 3 week visit to Seattle to see friends and family over the holidays, and then a mad 5 day scramble to provision and fix a bunch of things that broke at the last minute. Jenna and I have some writing to do and will share more about our fantastic November and December.

But it’s all good right now. This is our first offshore passage in over a year. We have 8 souls on board: my brother Rich (a veteran of our Marguesas passage), his adult children Kate and Nic, our friend from Seattle/Munich Travis, plus Jenna, the kiddies, and I.

It is 3:00 AM Sophie time (UTC + 7) on January 13. Our current position is 07 38.205N, 094 10.652E. Our course is 272m, making a speed of 7.5 knots with full main and jib on a broad reach with a lovely 10 knot breeze from the NNE. Swells are under a meter. There has been no rain.

We have actually slowed down in the last couple of hours and were making 8-10 knots since noon yesterday. We had the gennaker up for the entire day. Life is good. At this speed we will reach our destination of Male in under a week.

We’ve spent the first 36 hours of the passage getting our sea legs and organizing the cabin. I’ve only had to repair two toilets so far. The pump in Hazel’s head needed a complete servicing (I wish she wouldn’t swallow so many hair rubber bands), and I had to replace the Stephen Fell memorial joker valve in the yellow room’s head.

Overall the crew is pretty happy, because it is hard to not be happy when you are sailing at 8 knots in flat seas on a passage in the tropics. Leo was queasy for much of yesterday, and we will try to get Sophie School going today. First night’s dinner was pasta, and last night we had cheeseburgers. The fishing program will begin in earnest at sunrise as we pass north of the Nicobars. 5 lines are going in.

We are so very, very lucky. Nothing lightens your mood like a smooth bottom, a favorable current, and fair winds.

Stephen vs. Danny: We Won!

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Jamie

I wrote a blog back in August about the friendly rivalry between my nephews Stephen and Danny about who was going to have the best Sophie Adventure Cruise. Stephen joined us for 3 weeks in August for a visit that was epic. His younger brother Dan joined us for a 2 week visit in October that turned out to be equally epic. The real winners of this contest? Me, Jenna, Leo, and Hazel. We had the pleasure of sharing our home for almost 2 months with family members who were a lot of fun AND served as excellent role models for their younger cousins. Well, at least for most of the time.

“DanDaMan” arrived on flights from Switzerland on the evening of October 1, and we set out the next day on for the same basic loop around the “Dandaman” Sea that we took Stephen: Koh Racha, Koh Phi Phi, Krabi, and Koh Hong. Unfortunately, when Dan landed the entire Phuket area was blanketed with smoke from the Sumatra palm oil fires that are plaguing the area, limiting our visibility. We also got off to a late start and tucked into the Chalong anchorage for our first night. The next morning headed down to Koh Rocha and grabbed the mooring on the west side anchorage, only to discover that the bar on the rocks overlooking the beach that Stephen and I enjoyed so much had been razed. So we went around the corner to Racha’s east coast to visit “Beer Beach”, which turned out to be a charmless wasteland of multiple tourist boats, small amounts of beach, and even smaller amounts of beer. So we decided to ditch Koh Racha altogether and head over to Koh Phi Phi. We spent a night anchored off Jasmin Restaurant, and then spent a week at Monkey Beach.

Dan LOVED Monkey Beach. We swam every day, and he coached us on our flips and splash dives. We played Settlers of Catan. We went around the corner and into town for meals and onshore Sophie School. From a vacation point of view, Dan thought it was perfect. “After all the work on my PhD, this is exactly what I needed. Oooagh!”

One day we took the big dinghy and bombed the five miles over to Phi Phi Le, with a first stop at Maya Beach. Upon arrival, the kiddies were thrilled to discover that Dan had a big rip in the seat of his swim shorts. Dan was able to successfully manage the situation and enjoyed the spectacle of the hundreds of boats and thousands of tourists that crowd into this little beach.

After Maya Beach, we bombed around to the east side of Phi Phi Le and dropped a hook in the middle of the floating party boats. The boat next to us had 40 backpackers on board, and the owner gave each of them a tallboy can of Chang Beer that they all took into the water. They floated together in a little group, sipping their beers, as the owner then climbed 50 feet up the cliff on the side of the hong and did a magnificent backflip in front of the assembled fleet. It was pretty cool.

When Stephen was with us, we became friends with some backpackers on Phi Phi. Actually, it was Hazel who made the initial connection. Adz and Audrey were playing Frisbee on the beach at Phi Phi at low tide, and Hazel worked her way into their game. An hour later they joined us for a drink at the beachside restaurant where we were hanging out. Adz is a tattoo artist, and he swung by later that evening to check out the situation while Stephen and I were getting out tattoos. He thought the local guy was doing a good job and was inking clean lines. We wound up inviting Adz and Audrey for a ride back to Phuket on Sophie, and they accepted and even spent a night on board. Adz was so happy at one point that he did a headstand.

We became friends with some backpackers while Danny was with us in Phi Phi as well, but this story is a bit more of a caper. Unfortunately, Leo woke up one morning feeling sick to his stomach, and Jenna suggested that Dan and I head into town to pick up some ginger ale and some beer (we were out.) Since Dan was on vacation, we also thought it would make sense if we stopped for a bite to eat. So we took the big dinghy over to the Rolling Stoned beach bar for a quick beer. 10 beers and one AWFUL hamburger later, we left and got the ginger ale and beer. As we walked across the low tide beach to the dinghy, Dan begged if we could join the pickup soccer game. We did, and we were terrible. We got in the dinghy and drove back to Sophie, where Jenna pointed out we had no beer or ginger ale with us. We had left them on the beach!

So we went back to Phi Phi, reloaded our drink bag, got into the dinghy, and then encountered a group of American kids hanging out in the water having fun and drinking beer. They seemed like our kind of people, so Danny and I invited them back to Sophie. After a little bit of consideration, they agreed, and Ella, Kevin, Maggie, Anna, and Shannon joined for a few hours on Monkey Beach.

They had all recently graduated form Loyola Marymount University in Baltimore (which means they were Jesuit-trained, like me) and were taking the smart step of backpacking across Thailand before getting on with their careers and the rest of their lives. We hung out in the water for a few hours and had a great time, except that Kevin got bit by a monkey (it didn’t break his skin), I discovered that the new dinghy wouldn’t plane with 7 adults on board (which really bummed me out), and Jenna was so busy taking care of Leo that she never got her beer (she is a loving mother with incredible patience.) But we made some new friends and have a new story to tell. Also, as you can see from the photo, the Sumatra smoke was still with us.

After a week in Phi Phi we headed up to Krabi to stock up on fresh produce and sing some karaoke at the Krabi River Marina. I got a haircut, and we took Dan to the wet market, the night market, the local temple, and to some of our favorite haunts. For karaoke, Dan opened the night with “Like a Virgin” which for some reason didn’t go over super-well with the local Thai crowd. The mike was passed to a group of ladies celebrating at a corner table, and we never got it back for the rest of the night. They did let Dan and his cousins dance with them, though.

After Krabi, we took Dan up to Koh Hong and grabbed a mooring on the south side off the national park beach. The Sumatra smoke had cleared, and Dan finally got some sunny weather with spectacular views.

We took him into the beach, where he discovered that the fishies love themselves some Hazel.

But all good things, including Dan’s visit, must sometimes come to an end. Which means we couldn’t convince him to stay another a week. So after Koh Hong, we headed back to the Yacht Haven Marina in northern Phuket for one last meal with some of our cruising friends. On the way we stopped for lunch at the Paradise Resort on Koh Yao Noi. Hazel likes the big swing there.

Dan’s flight left at 8:00 PM the next day, so we had the opportunity to spend a last day exploring Phuket with him. We headed down to the Tree House Restaurant, where we had once taken Stephen, for lunch. Unfortunately it was closed. Jenna still hasn’t eaten there. So we instead headed all the way down to Chalong for a waterfront meal at Dickie’s Lighthouse.

Dan enjoyed his last meal in Thailand. Unfortunately for me, I’ve been SUCH a good host for my nephews during their 5 weeks here that I’ve been eating and drinking this way during their entire visits. We’ve gone on a bit of a cleanse now before we host our next Adventure Cruise in November.

After lunch, we decided to drive up the hill and visit the Big Buddha statue that dominates southern Phuket. We’ve seen it from a distance dozens of times but never bothered to visit. What a mistake!

For starters, we passed multiple concessions that will take tourists on elephant rides, and they all have baby elephants out by the road. You can never see too many baby elephants!

At the top, there is a huge statue of Buddha that also serves as a temple, with monks inside singing prayers. If you turn your back on the temple, you can look out and see the “Dandaman Sea” and the loop we took over the last ten days with Dan. It was a great way to end his visit.

After the Big Buddha, we drove up Phuket’s west coast for one last sunset beach beer and then sadly dropped Dan off at the airport.

It was the end of two great visits that in our minds and hearts blended into one extended family fest, which is something that is especially important for Leo and Hazel as they continue to explore the other side of the world from where the rest of their family lives. Stephen and Daniel, thanks for the visits. We had a great time. Everybody is a winner!

Snake in the Lego Bag!

Posted on October 4, 2015 by Jenna

What started as a calm and typical Sophie School day turned alarming when Leo ran up from his room screaming that there was a snake in his Lego bag!

Leo has a huge collection of Legos, and for the past couple months we had been storing his suitcase sized canvas Lego duffle bags in the generator compartment next to our bikes. During a short school break, Leo retrieved the biggest Lego bag and brought it to his room to play. As he unzipped the bag and reached in, he noticed a terrible smell, and then his hand touched something that wasn’t a Lego piece. At first he thought it was a toy snake, but then to his horror realized it was real! Real and big! Completely terrified, Leo ran upstairs to me and Hazel, screaming about the snake. Jamie was on shore running errands. Good times!

Our initial concern was whether the snake was alive or dead. As I comforted Leo, a flurry of thoughts rushed through my head. Several of our friends have experienced snake visits to their boats within the last few months. Vipers and pythons, oh my! What could be slithering around in his room? Then, I realized there was an overwhelming dead animal smell coming through the boat. Leo thought the snake was dead, but it took a minute for him to feel certain about this and I didn’t want to let him back in his room with a live snake. After peeking in to check that the snake was still motionless in the bag, Leo carried the duffel outside and dropped it on the deck.

The kids and I got a much better view in the sunlight. Definitely dead. It was still coiled up and I couldn’t tell how long it was, but this was not a little sea snake like the ones we’ve seen while swimming in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. The markings looked like a python to me. A python?!? In my child’s Lego bag!?! I felt sick.

Next, Leo thumbed through his army survival manual while I searched online. The closest matches were images of pythons and the other common snakes of Thailand looked quite different. Ok, python it is. But how did it get into the bag? How long was it in there? How did it get zipped in? Where did it come from? When did it slither onto Sophie? How many times had we been in the generator compartment during the last month? How many times had we lifted those Lego bags in and out of the compartment to get bikes out, access LPG bottles, do generator maintenance, etc.? Jamie can spends hours at a time in there working on the electronics or genet. Thank goodness Leo had been doing a big push on school this month and had taken a Lego break or chances are he might have opened that bag days earlier and… no, I can’t even.

On deck wasn’t far enough away from the smell, so we threw the bag onto the dock. When Jamie returned, he pulled the snake out using fishing pliers and we got our first look at the entire creature.

The snake was about five feet long and dried. It must have been in that bag for a while. There was a snakeskin in there too. We may have picked it up in Malaysia. Who knows? We have no idea exactly when or where the snake boarded Sophie or which one of us zipped it into the bag, or whether there was a small enough opening by the end of the zipper for it to get in but not back out. We were all pretty shaken from the thought of a snake crawling around our home, but very thankful we never saw the live version. Jamie was kind enough to dispose of it all. Leo is mourning the loss of half his Lego collection, but there was no way we were keeping any of it. We have also carefully inspected Sophie and believe there are no other snakes lurking. We feel quite relieved, but remain vigilant.

Our mood changed quickly following this unpleasant event, with the arrival of our nephew Danny that night. The kids love having another cousin visit, and we are back in prime cruising form with all the new upgrades on Sophie.

We started out with dinner at the same beach restaurant where we took Danny’s brother Stephen last month.

We even got a break from all the Sumatran smoke for Danny’s first day out on the water, with spectacular views across Phang Nga Bay. Leo winched the jib out manually for an afternoon sail.

That morning, Hazel had written a letter for school about Amelia Earhart and was thrilled when we sailed past the USNS Amelia Earhart anchored outside Chalong Harbor. A total coincidence, we had no idea it was there. Jamie hailed them on the radio to thank them for their service and share the story about Hazel’s project.

We stopped for the night around the corner and enjoyed a quick swim just before sunset.

The next morning, we motored to Racha, where we stopped for some snorkeling and hull cleaning. It’s hard to tell from the photos, but we only had about two miles visibility on the way from all the smoke in the air from the Sumatran fires.

The beach bar at Racha had been torn down since Jamie and the kids were there with Stephen last month, and the wind was picking up from the west, so we decided to move to Beer Beach on the other side of the island. That turned out to be an overcrowded tourist boat day stop, so after a quick dinghy recon mission, we departed for Koh Phi Phi and dinner at Jasmine’s. On the way, Danny caught a big barracuda in the “Dandaman” Sea, our first large fish in a long time.

Mojitos, Thai food, pizza, Settlers of Catan, beaches, snorkeling, kayaking and lots of swimming and diving are on the menu this week, and there hasn’t been a snake in sight. We still aren’t feeling very motivated to play with Lego yet, but we do feel very lucky.

Anchors and Other Stuff

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Jamie

Here’s a quick update on Sophie’s ongoing Thai makeover. Earlier this week, we replaced our old Lewmar “plow” style anchor with a new Rocna anchor. Rocnas are made in New Zealand and are considered by many cruisers to be the finest anchors in the world.

Our Lewmar anchor weighed 40 kg and came with Sophie when we bought the boat in 2008. Overall it has served us well, but we’ve dragged our anchor several times in the last 5 months, so Jenna and I thought it was time for a change. The Rocna weighs 55 kg, has a bigger spade to bite into the ocean floor, and features a roll bar that helps keep it set.

As you can see, the new anchor is significantly larger than this .5 liter beer bottle. Our nephew Dan, who has joined us for a 12 day Sophie Adventure Cruise, was kind enough to point out that the beer bottle is empty.

Getting the Rocna onto Sophie required choreography and teamwork. We used four ropes and it all worked perfectly. There was no shouting. Just smiles. The new anchor makes us happy.

Our old anchor was attached to the anchor chain with an inline stainless steel fitting. Many sailors do not like this kind of attachment because side pressure could potentially cause the stainless steel to bend and eventually break. In fact, we have a friend in Seattle who recently purchased a new sailboat, and he spent a week trying to remove this type of fitting from his anchor.

Our’s came off in three minutes, which is pretty cool given that it has been in use for 7 and a half years.

As you can see, there is no bend to our fitting.

We are using a simple shackle to attach the Rocna to our anchor chain. Rocna has an excellent anchoring knowledgebase on their website, and they recommend using this approach.

We replaced our anchor bridle, the 2 ropes that we clip on to the anchor chain once it has set. The bridle acts as a shock absorber and distributes the load from the anchor to each hull. The old bridle was hard and calcified, covered with dead barnacles and other marine mysteries. The new bridle is soft and shiny. We also bought a completely new anchor chain. We won’t replace the chain until we haul Sophie out of the water for bottom painting in December.

Between the new anchor and chain, we hope to have worry-free nights for years to come.

We’ve had some other work done in Thailand this past week. Sophie has a wooden seat on each bow pulpit. The original seats were made from marine plywood and were beginning to delaminate.

We replaced them with solid teak. They are now too nice to sit on.

We installed a West Marine plastic engine mount on one of our stern pulpits for the engine to our small dinghy, The Baby.

The mount is designed to attach to the pulpit where a horizontal tube and a vertical tube meet to form a “T”. We didn’t have one of those, so we asked a local guy to make one for us by welding a new piece of stainless steel to our pulpit.

We had the local rigger Rolly Tasker make a custom bridle for our big dinghy, making it easy for us to raise the dingy out of the water using our stern dinghy davits. The bridle is made from 10 mm Dyneema cored rope. We also replaced the dinghy davit ropes with Dyneema as well.

Our microwave oven bit the dust 2 months ago, and Jenna brought one back from the US with her in August. We couldn’t buy one locally because all appliances in Asia are 230 volt, and Sophie is a 110 volt American boat. We had to get a local carpenter to recut the wooden face plate in the microwave cabinet in order to get the new appliance to fit. Hi Dan!

Finally, we got new fender covers. I know it’s a relatively minor thing, but it means a lot to us. They look nice!

That’s about it for now. Please stay tuned, because later today Jenna is going to do a post an out the most terrifying thing imaginable that happened to us this week. It’s awful!

A Calm Between the Storms

Posted on September 27, 2015 by Jamie

We mentioned a few blogs ago about how our nephew Stephen joined us for an epic 3 week visit in August, helping me with childcare and Sophie School during Jenna’s visit to the United States. Stephen returned to his home in Los Angeles on September 1st. His brother Daniel — aka “Dan da Man” — arrives on October 1st for a 2 week visit that we all hope will be equally epic.

So for the four of us on Sophie, September has turned out to be a calm period, similar in a way to the flat calm water in between two massive cannonball dives from our cat’s roof. How did we choose to spend our September?

Our Cruising Area

Sophie has been cruising a patch of the Andaman Sea between the island of Phuket (on the left of the map) and the Thai mainland (on the right) over the last 10 weeks. For September, we started out at the Yacht Haven Marina on the northern tip of Phuket and then worked our way clockwise as we visited “James Bond Island”, Ko Hong (Ko is Thai for island), the town of Krabi, and then Ko Phi Phi Don. We are currently back in Krabi for a few days and will head west to the Ao Po Marina on Phuket in time for Dan’s arrival.

Here is a quick runthrough of our September activities.

James Bond Island

Ko Phing Kan, otherwise known as James Bond Island, is the location from the film The Man With The Golden Gun where Roger Moore — wearing a wool plaid sportcoat — lands his seaplane on a beach in order to rescue a bikini-clad Britt Eckland, kill Christopher Lee, and recover the stolen Solex Agitator in order to help the world overcome the energy crisis created by the early 1970s OPEC oil embargo. In the movie, the island is remote and pristine. Roger Moore never breaks a sweat.
In reality, this island was one of the worst tourist traps we’ve visited on the entire cruise. There were 2,000 tourists trudging shoulder-to-shoulder from the landing beach up to the photo spot and then to the other beach which was filled with 20 shops selling plastic toys and wooden elephants. After 10 minutes I couldn’t take it any more and had to go back to the dinghy. I doubt we will return.

Ko Hong

After one night at James Bond Island, we headed 20 miles southeast to a mooring on the north side of Ko Hong, an island that is a national park. We spent a week here and loved every second of it. It was a great place for us to get back into tropical cruising mode. Jenna was able to get the kids back on track at Sophie School after the Jamie and Stephen teaching experience. I was able to get multiple boat projects done. We swam several times a day. We took the new dinghy and bombed around to the south side of the island to hang out on the beach (pictured above). We had sunny weather for a week. It’s a very happy place.

Krabi

I love Krabi.

It’s a city on a river on the mainland another 20 miles southeast from Ko Hong. We came here to restock our groceries and to renew our Thai visas at the local immigration office. As I’ve mentioned before, Krabi has a small karaoke marina on the river, and there is an esplanade that connects the marina with the town. For the first time since Penang, we were able to break the kids’ bikes out and ride up and down the waterfront.

Hazel eventually developed the confidence to ride on city streets, so we took off to a cluster of local restaurants built on stilts over the mangrove.

I had the fish.

This was Jenna’s first visit to Krabi, and the kids loved taking their mother by the hand and showing her the town. We walked the market stalls, played Jenga, sang karaoke, and even found a coffee shop that let us watch the Patriots-Steelers game.

We visited the Buddhist shrine located at top of a local temple. The 1,260 steps up were quite an effort for all of us, but Leo believed that the view was worth it.

Phi Phi

After Krabi, we headed back down to Ko Phi Phi, where we spent the next 10 days. I thought I would provide a map to give you some perspective. On our first night we anchored off the restaurant Jasmin on the northeast coast. This anchorage provides good holding and protection against westerly winds. We dinghied in to the restaurant and enjoyed a nice meal after a full day of school.

The seas were bouncy when we woke up the next morning, so we headed around the corner and grabbed a mooring in Ton Sai Bay. The main town of Ko Phi Phi Don is located on the isthmus between the two sides of the island. We continued our pattern of school and chores during the day followed by a late afternoon dinghy trip into town for a walk and dinner. We started using our small dinghy, “The Baby” every day and enjoyed it a lot.

After three days at the mooring, a wind from the south picked up, so we decided to head around to the Monkey Beach anchorage on the northwest side of the island. What a great decision! We spent a week here and think it is one of our favorite spots of our entire trip. Jenna said “When we left the US, I assumed all of our anchorages would be like this.” Monkey beach is around the corner from the town, so you can’t really see it. There is a nice beach. The beach has monkeys. There is coral and great swimming.

The beach on the north side of the isthmus has a great scene, so we took The Baby in every day for meals or to conduct Sophie School sessions on shore. I have to say the kids did a great job at school throughout the entire month. They have an excellent teacher.

We celebrated Leo’s 11th birthday at Monkey Beach. Jenna made him an apple pie, along with linguini with clam sauce. It’s his favorite meal.

Leo enjoys his new underwater camera and is spending a lot of time under the boat. He says it was his best birthday ever.

After a week at Monkey Beach, we woke up one night and discovered that the boat was dragging it’s anchor during a violent squall. Jenna and I stood an anchor watch, and the next morning we headed back up to Krabi. We’ve had heavy rain for the last two days and are glad to be on a dock again. Tomorrow we will leave and start heading west towards Ao Po on Phuket. We will be ready for the cannonball splash DandaMan creates when he arrives on Thursday.

We’ve had mostly sunny weather this month. All of the machines on the boat are working. The kids are back on track at school. We like Thailand, and we love to have the opportunity to share it with family and friends. And Hazel can now drive a dinghy.

Girls Week

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Jenna

Now that we have a month without visitors on Sophie, in addition to enjoying some relaxing family time with Jamie and the kids, I’m finally making a dent in triaging the tens of thousands of photos I’ve taken this year. Here’s one about Bali.

Our fabulous friends, Maureen and Elizabeth, joined us for “Girls Week” in February. Jamie graciously offered to take care of the kids while I played with the girls. We toured all around Bali, hiked, cycled, feasted on local dishes, and even managed to squeeze in a little time to relax at the beach.

Before Maureen landed, Elizabeth and I visited the Pura Luhur Uluwatu Temple, the southernmost major temple in Bali, that has incredible views of the Indian Ocean. Bali is where we got our first real look out to the Indian Ocean after many inland sea passages across Indonesia.

Amphitheatre gate at Uluwatu Temple.

Clifftop view at Uluwatu.

Love the monkeys!

Ganesha statue

Inner temple gate at Uluwatu

Monkey gate.

Elizabeth with our guide.

Nothing says vacation like tropical flowers and lemongrass in your lunch drink.

Yummy!

Garden canopy

A temple in Kuta, Denpassar

We also enjoyed high tea at the Fairmont, Sanur Beach.

We found a perfect little beach warung with tasty local food and plenty of Bintang to help welcome Maureen.

Potato Head Beach Club

One of my favorite Girls Week experiences was lounging by the beach and people watching at the Potato Head Beach Club. This place reminded me a little bit of the time we celebrated Elizabeth’s 40th birthday in Vegas, only with a more mellow crowd scene.

Surf’s up!

Seminyak

We treated ourselves to the renown Ku De Ta restaurant and nightclub in Seminyak for dinner. Bubbles were obligatory.

Bubbles at Ku De Ta

Ku De Ta

Girls Week dinner – Ku De Ta

Road Trip

One of our best adventures was a downhill bike ride from the ridge in Kintimani through small villages on the way to Ubud.

Overlooking Mount Batur from Kintimani

Cycling through a village

Saraswati, goddess of knowledge, music and art.

Visiting an elementary school on our trek.

Balinese children finishing up their school day.

Leading the class in end of day prayers.

School’s out.

Entrance to the family temple inside a traditional Balinese home.

Google Street View vehicle capturing a neighborhood on our bike route.

Here is the corner where we saw the Google Street View vehicle in case you want to hunt for it. 🙂

Guarding the gate.

Rest stop to see a temple after our one uphill section of the ride.

We decided to try durian at a local fruit stand.

Durian smells bad, but tastes delicious. It’s slightly alcoholic and considered one of the best ways to catch a tiger in Indonesia. We did not catch one.

Mangosteen, my favorite tropical fruit.

More durian.

Newly harvested rice drying in the sun.

Wandering rooster. In general, chickens and roosters roam free in villages.

Sacred Monkey Forest of Padangtedal

After our bike trip, we stopped at the Monkey Forest in Ubud. This is a sacred site for Balinese Hinduism, the predominant religion on Bali, which incorporates aspects of Animism, Ancestor Worship, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Also, the monkeys here were very cute.

Mama and baby macaques.

Grooming and snack time.

Monkeys petting monkeys.

Baby macaque hands look like newborn humans. The rest? All monkey.

Peeking in from outside the gate at Pura Dalem Agung Padangtedal.

Can you see the live monkey?

This one found a few seconds alone to enjoy its snack.

Climbing down towards the Bathing Temple.

Maureen at the stream overlook.

Monkey see, monkey do.

Stream by the Bathing Temple.

Ubud

The city of Ubud is promoted as the cultural center of Bali. While I can imagine its allure and charm thirty years ago, we encountered a large number of tourists and souvenir hawkers, a stark contrast compared to the quiet Balinese countryside we enjoyed so much on the cycle tour.

One of the more quiet streets in Ubud.

Waiting to cross the street in Ubud.

Carvings above a doorway.

One symbol of Ubud’s commercialism was the Starbuck’s we found inside the entrance to one of the temple gardens, at the Pura Taman Kemuda Saraswati.

Pura Taman Kemuda Saraswati

Reflecting pools.

This appeared to be a very cool tree house overlooking the grounds next door.

We saw so many intricate details on the temple entrance.

Another temple garden gate.

One of the highlights of Ubud was the French-inspired Balinese and Indonesian cooking at Mozaic Restaurant Gastronomique, where we enjoyed signature cocktails and the chef’s six course Surprize Menu with wine pairing. Outdoor garden pavilion dining turned out to be more thrilling than we anticipated, when a torrential downpour with huge lightning strikes blew through during our meal. We were far enough under the roof to avoid getting soaked, but it felt like we were about to be hit by lightning at any moment.

Sea grapes and six variations of local seafood, served on stones.

Gnocchi with mushrooms and sage butter

This incredible platter of local fresh fruit, spices and herbs was intended to be an educational prop for our waiter to explain the menu, but we ate every last bit of the fruit and some of the herbs. Our waiter’s face may or may not have looked a little horrified when he discovered this.

In Ubud, we also had an incredible view from our hotel room, looking across the rice fields towards the volcano.

Watching ducks cross the rice fields with Mount Agung in the distance, in Ubud, Bali

Sacred Herons of Petulu

Just before sunset, we stopped in the small town of Petulu, on the northeast outskirts of Ubud where each night, thousands of herons return to nest. Legend has it that these birds, who arrived for the first time in late 1965, are the reincarnated souls of people killed during mass murders that followed a failed coup attempt that same year. The birds all roost within the village limits each night and fly away during the day. This massive bird arrival is an incredible scene, and only felt a little like we were on the set of The Birds. Mysterious and beautiful. Somehow, we managed to escape unharmed.

Sacred herons return to Petulu

Everywhere you look, birds cover every tree, every rooftop, everything.

These pictures hardly capture how densely packed every tree and rooftop was.

Cattle egret, Petulu, Bali

One of the Petulu herons

Petulu village

Rooftop perch.

Two of my favorite people in the world, birdwatching.

Barong Dance at Batubulan

In the village of Batubulan, we saw a Barong dance at one of the temples. .

Batubalan, Bali

Statues, Batubalan

More temple details, Batubalan

The Barong Dance, a traditional Balinese story, portrays the eternal struggle between good and evil. The Barong, who is half-lion and half-dog, battles Rangda, an evil witch.

The Barong

Rangda

Balinese dancer

Barong Dance

The Barong

A traditional gamelan orchestra.

The girls.

Batik Fabric

We visited a batik fabric factory and learned about the dye and wax process as well as traditional fabric weaving.

Adding wax to a batik pattern.

Tools used for batik designs.

Applying wax before adding the second of many colors.

A batik design, nearing completion.

Traditional loom weaving.

The finished pattern.

The fabric pattern is pre-dyed on the thread.

Dying batik fabric.

Goa Gajah

Another site we visited was Goa Gajah, or the Elephant Cave, home to one of the oldest Ganesha statues in Bali.

Entrance to Elephant Cave.

Offerings.

More offerings.

Rock formations outside the cave.

Pools outside the cave.

Making an offering.

One of the shrines.

Garden paths at Goa Gajah.

Magnificent tree roots.

On our hike, we foraged for berries with our guide. He promised these were edible. They tasted a bit like bland blueberries.

We planned to hike to a shrine in the forest, but were cut short by a raging stream that was too high to cross.

We also came across this little guy. He’s not deadly, but has a wicked mean bite.

Elizabeth in the tranquility garden.

On our way out of Goa Gajah.

Mount Agung

One of our lunch stops overlooked rice fields on the slopes of Mount Agung.

Pura Besakih

The Mother Temple, Pura Besakih, is a giant complex located on Mount Agung and it is considered the most important and holiest temple in Balinese Hinduism. The mountain and temples provided beautiful scenery, but there were hawkers almost everywhere along our path trying to convince us to buy their wares, including a tenacious pack of six year old girls who followed us halfway up the hillside. Cute, but no thanks. I loved people-watching here, especially the Balinese women who passed us on the steps, balancing their offerings in baskets stacked up high on their heads.

Sanur Beach

We really appreciate our amazing husbands, Jamie, Troy and Steve, who stayed home and watched the kids all week so we could spend some quality girl time. Next time, though, we found a better option in Bali. Just need to figure out what to do with the kids…

Lembongan

Our one Sophie Adventure Cruise destination trip of the week was to the neighboring island of Lembogan, where we rented bikes and pedaled a lap of the island.

Mooring at Lembongan, Indonesia

Villas and caves, Lembongan, Indonesia

View across the bay, Lembongan

Paddleboarding!

Scrabblemaster E and the kiddies

Seaweed farming off Lembongan

Local mooring field, Lembongan

View from the hilltop of Lembongan Village and Bali in the distance

Vacation fun.

Thank you for am amazing week, Maureen and Elizabeth! It was incredible to explore Bali with you and add another chapter to this crazy and wonderful adventure. I am so lucky to have you in my life.

sailing sophie

follow our family on our sailing adventure.