Phuket Regatta

We made our way from Kanchanaburi to Phuket by overnight bus, (not a lot of fun unless you like feeling trussed up like a turkey and watching good US movies in very loud German). We found great accommodation in Rawaii Beach, close to the Regatta HQ called "Come In" . Some of the contents of our room were better suited to a scene from Max and Paddy (bouncy castle!). Quite coincidentally, on the night before the first race, we met a fellow competitor in the Come In bar. He was sailing a pink (yes really), 21ft boat called Oo La La. He had an all Thai crew that had never sailed until a couple of days prior to the first race. He and his team were the most energetic and enthusiastic guys you could ever meet. Really up for it! With a combined weight of about 200kgs between the five of them on board!
We arrived a couple of days early, so toured round for a day and spent a day practising on a brand new, 52 ft Catamaran called Mahayana. She was a beautiful boat with a great English owner/skipper called Josh. Unfortunately for us we were not part of the team that sailed with them through the rest of the regatta. This was just as well as they broke the bow sprit (or the pointy bit) on the first day and had to pull out of the racing. Our first day racing, we were to join a french skipper on a 48 ft catamaran called Chameray. The weather was lousy and so the skipper decided he wasn't racing. Cheese eating surrender monkeys heh?
So for the first day of racing, we joined yet another catamaran called Chameleon. More news of the racing and party below!
Pink is obviously "de riguer"in Phuket!
This is Chameleon. We sailed on her the first day and scored our first ever race win in ocean multi hull class. This was a hot crew, a hot boat and a great tactician! We spent the next few days trying to beat them and boy, did we come close!
This the boat we sailed on during days 2,3 and 4 - Out of the Bag.
As two boats in the class had pulled out (not due to us!), we were "match racing" Chameleon. The crew was composed of 4 ossies, one Brazilian (nick named wax) and us two pommies. From the book of excuses, on the first day we were on Out of the Bag , the crew broke a headsail and a spinnaker, so had to finish the course with only the mainsail. Up until this point we were neck and neck, with a record speed for us of 18.7 knots! Overnight, the sails were repaired and we started with a full set of sails on a very windy day. From the book of excuses, we had some issues with the steering, but still managed to hit another new record of 20 knots. What a wild ride - nothing at Alton Towers can compare! Big, seas, big winds and dodgy steering, life doesn't get much better! However, we finished second again. Overnight, the steering was repaired and we went into the final day of the regatta confidant of getting a win. We actually lost by one second in a race that took two hours to complete! Disappointing, but we'll be back for another go.

This is Oo La La - the pink, all Thai crew boat. There was a lot of support for this popular crew.
We looked for a picture of our crew at work, but only found one! Here they are, repairing the steering. Typically blokes, they used a hammer and drill!
The entertainment was absolutely top notch - fabulous food of all types and generous sponsors of wine, beer and whisky. However, it was really hard trying to fit in racing and parties as this guy shows.
At two of the parties, there was the top Thai girl band, Unicorn singing for us. They did a cracking job of getting us all up dancing. (see later)

Team shot - the skipper of Out of the Bag, Bill, in the middle being supported by his crew, Terry and Garry. Terry is an ex rugby league player and taught Garry to wind the winches properly, not like a union player! We are missing one of our crew here, Rob had gone walk about.
Terry again with Bruno, the Brazilian, better known as wax.
This is John, another of the ossies with his pommie wife (she was a great girl). No spring chicken but he could shin up the mast, without a boasons chair in seconds and did so on several occasions.
Here are Tia and Pon, skipper and crew from Oo La La. We wished they had won something but we think we will see them around again.
This is Lesley, one of the orgainisers, who helped to make the regatta a big success and us with our winning tee shirts from the first day of the regatta when we sailed on Chameleon.

We have since left Phuket on an Italian built boat. Currently, we are in Langkawi, on our way to Tioman. Who knows what we will do next?

Best wishes to you all.

Super Furry Animals

You won't believe this as we've done it and still cannot believe it!
On our way to Phuket, we stopped off at Kanchanaburi. This is most famous for the Bridge over the River Kwai, Death Railway, waterfalls and caves. However, we were attracted by stories we'd heard from other travellers of something far more exciting. The Super Furry Animals (does anyone remember that band?) were playing at the Tiger temple!
This is in fact a Temple run by Buddhist monks, who in 1999 first adopted an orphaned tiger cub whose mother had been killed by poachers on the Burmese/Thai border. This led to more tigers and other animals being donated to the monks for them to look after. We had heard that it was possible to go with regular tourists to see the tigers, stroke them and have your photograph with a tigers head on your lap. However, it is also possible to "volunteer" for an early morning session with the tigers to feed them and tire them out ready for the tourists in the afternoon.
We arrived early for the afternoon session and were fortunate enough to get time with the tigers without the usual crowds. We played with 7 week old tiger cubs, walked the adolescents and stroked very carefully the rather large and ferocious adults (weighing over 300 pounds). Later in the afternoon, the tigers are walked down to a canyon where you can have your photograph taken stroking them or with their head on your knee. This was a fantastic afternoon and we would strongly recommend this to any animal lovers. It really is a fabulous experience.
Having volunteered (but you do have to pay) for the active morning session, we arrived at the Temple at 7am with only seven other volunteers. We were asked to bring a fruit donation as part of the morning ritual was taking breakfast with the monks in the Temple. The Abbott and the monks would walk along the line of volunteers taking the food gifts. The Abbott was particularly fond of strawberries and cherries. The Temple breakfast for us was a new experience not being Buddhists. We then followed the monks into the Temple where we found four adolescent tigers and four cubs. The volunteers sat in a circle and were given the four cubs to play with. We each also had an opportunity to bottle feed the adolescents. All in all, we had about an hour playing with the cubs whilst being being blessed by the monks over breakfast. It's not every day you have a breakfast like that!
After this, we walked the adolescents and the cubs back to their pens. The cubs were put away and we walked the adolescents down to the canyon for "play" time! One rule is never to walk in front of a tiger, as they will see you as a toy and "play" with you! In the rush to get to the canyon, Garry got in front of a loose tiger and was duly mauled, however no damage was done! The tigers then playfight for about an hour with each other in the canyon pool. You wouldn't believe how much they love playing in the water! Our role was to form a human barrier across the edge of the pool to stop them running off. This is part of their training. The photographs don't entirely capture what a brilliant experience it was.
We then walked these kids back and this time Alison got mauled, but no damage done. A quick wash and brush down of the tigers and then we got the big boys out!
They are huge!
The same routine, walk them down on leads to the canyon for playtime! Trust us, no-one got in front of these guys! Again, the photos do not do justice to how exciting it was. At the end of this playtime, the really big tiger found his toy (half a basketball) and just like all kids, he didn't want playtime to finish! He wouldn't give up his toy and in fact hid round the back of the rocks with it and then he wouldn't come out of the water. You should have heard him roar. He was only playing, so the handlers said! Eventually, they got him out of the water and got his toy off him. They had to run after him to catch him and there was a bit of a banging of handlers heads. One of the other volunteers grabbed hold of Alison when he let off another roar.
When he was finally out of the water, they put his lead on and he was as good as gold.


This tiger wanted his tummy tickling.
He really did want his tummy tickling.
In the end he got his own way.

This is the big fella that wouldn't come out of the water. More about him later.
Same big fella, enjoying some tlc.
Just to show Garry wasn't scared of him.
Go on - stroke me.
That's better.

I like being stroked in the afternoon, when I'm tired and my tummy's full.
This is during breakfast in the Temple.
Look at the expression on that face.
Seven week old cub for breakfast.
These are not teddy bears - real live tiger cubs sleeping during prayers.

This is the tiger Garry fed. Not sure what was in the food but it went a bit wappy during prayers.
How cute is this? See the blue eyes?
When you train a tiger to walk on a lead, you have to pull its tail to keep it walking on the right track. Can you see that Garry has it by the tail!
A better behaved tiger, doesn't need its tail pulling.
Two adolescents playfighting.

Adolescents playing "tig" in the canyon pool. They absolutely loved it, playing non stop all the time. Stalking each other, chasing each other and fighting each other.
They like playing ball. The one at the front is pulling tongues.
Tiger on tiger action.
What a left hook by the tiger on its back.
Another strong left hook. Seems to be that when your opponents got you down, the answer is to hook them.

They were amazingly not afraid of getting very very wet.
He forgot to left hook his opponent and found himself under water.
Have you seen the size of those paws?
This is the big fella when he wouldn't give up his toy. What about that for a sulk?
Sometimes, they would dive off these rocks into the water, on top of one another. We never quite managed to get the shot though.

Oh, and by the way, we did go to the Bridge and it looks like this.

Now we are off to take part in the Phuket regatta 24th - 27th July.

Pleased to hear that Hamilton had another win.

Goodbye Pattaya

Since our last blog we have finally made a decision to move on, but who knows we may come back to Pattaya! We feel as if we haven't done much but looking at the photos below we have done a few things. On our way home one day, we had to avoid the ladder across the middle of the road. Just as well that we did, because as you can see there was someone half way up it!
Does this comply with the working at height regulations? As far as ladder safety goes, take a look at the angle.

Garry - confused! Our friend Gary (skipper and owner of El Coyote) very kindly lent us his small boat. Scott, Alison and Garry took it out for a play and had a great time and wondered why we hadn't been doing more of it. Scott who was supposed to be going to Phuket, but like us got caught in the Pattaya black hole, is thinking of buying a boat - note to Scott, get your finger out, we want to do some more sailing.
We did another race weekend in Pattaya on El Coyote. This guy keeps turning up. We were going very well on the Saturday, until we had a minor saill problem (the head sail ripped in half). On Sunday, we carried out extensive first class repairs to the sail, both pre and during race, only eventually having to retire with a minor steering problem. A little disappointing as we were going really well at the time. Due to our consistent performance, we are now lying joint second in the overall points table. Since we left Pattaya, the team has been racing again, but we haven't had an update yet. Will one of you let us know how you did? Did you beat Patience 5 and which sail did you use? Hopefully see you again for the decider on 16th August!
This is the race tactics and post mortem meeting.
Les is in red shorts - he has been racing with us. Francis is the other guy and he has also raced with us but was not able to take part in the race on this particular weekend.
Tony - fellow crew member and sail repairer and Siam.

On our last night in Pattaya (at the Standard), we popped in for a quiet beer. These guys (Francis and Nina) turned up and didn't leave until 2.30 am. Our early start the next morning was somewhat compromised!
Again, on our last night Scott and his girlfriend turned up and contributed to the mess! His girlfriend is an awesome snooker player, even at 1am!
This is Om who works at the standard.
This is Jojoe with Jemima, Arabella and Amber. Arabella is only 7 years old, but you don't want to take her on at Connect 4!

We have received confirmation that we have a place in the Phuket Regatta, so we set off but stopped off on the way. Wait till you see the next blog because our experience on the way to Phuket was awesome. It is so exciting!

Garry and Alison