Free lunch in Cairo

On the last blog, we documented our final few days in Thailand and our move on to Cyprus. Finally here are the pictures to go with that and a little update from Cyprus.

On our last night in Thailand, we had a party for a few close friends (ie all our friends in Thailand!) in the local pub, which we normally refer to as "The Standard". Paul and Jojo, landlord and landlady, laid on great food and music and created an ideal atmosphere for seeing us off. Some of you may recognise above, Adrian on the left, Tony in the middle and Garry on the right. As the next destination would be a settled one, Garry took the opportunity to invest in a Hawaain shirt. What do you think?

Scott with his bevy of beauties. Now that Scott has re-assumed his role as bowman, he will be able to ask Siham for "head", five or six times during a race. She will always oblige. Non sailors may want to have this explained!

This is Thane who we sailed with down to Samui, during the regatta and back again, with his partner Dyer.

Nice picture isn't it - Gary and Pum.

After leaving The Standard, a hard core few (Tony, Siham Adrian and Alison) went on to a karaoke bar. Garry was tucked up in bed oblivious. At least we weren't thrown out this time.

The morning after, on our last day. We spent the day having a proper "Sunday", something Tony had been looking forward to for ages. Relaxing on the beach and larking about in the pool.

Fishing is a dangerous hobby - check out the guy wearing his crash hat. No-one wears them on their motorbikes, but they wear them fishing instead.

After spending the day on the beach , round the pool, making fountains out of the spa pump and going backwards down the slide, we went to the bar. Tony took control of the music and Siham had a blow dry! Tony lent us his car and driver to take us to the airport to set off for Cyprus, via Egypt.

This is Alison stood on a pyramid. Bit of a story with this. We had an 11 hour stopover in Cairo. We decided to take a trip with Egypt Air from the airport to the pyramids. We agreed with Egypt Air to pay the $35 price for the trip, but we fell lucky. It was the opening day of the new terminal three and as we were the first passengers to arrive, Egypt Air very kindly gave us the trip for free.

So we visited the pyramids and the Sphynx and had a lovely day out including a fantastic lunch. Thank you Egypt Air. Who says there's no such thing as a free lunch?

On to the next phase of our little adventure. We are now in Cyprus and the first thing we had to do when we arrived, was to secure jobs. So like you do, we went to the local pub for inspiration. Unfortunately, it had been knocked down. However, whilst walking down the street we found Stavros, aka Tony Soprano, and had a beer with him and his lovely ladies! He was the landlord of the football club bar that had been knocked down and is now the manager of another bar.

Larnaka (where we are living) has a great deal of history and plenty of things to see and do.
It's a small world and Seanoid and Mark from Hornsea (formerly Hedon) were on holiday in Pathos. We caught up with them in Limassol and they very kindly delivered some "stuff" from England. They are getting married next year, after a long engagement, so everyone wish them Congratulations.

So what progress have we made? We can make bread, count to ten in Greek, we've bought a bike (to share), Alison is working in a nursing home and Garry is busy looking for a job.

Bye for now. The blogs will continue.

Garry and Alison

Ko Samui Regatta - So Close.........

The last blog finished with us arriving at Ko Samui to take part in the Regatta for five days racing and seven nights partying.
Before we get into regatta stories, just check out the baby seat on this scooter. On closer examination, we also found a little seat belt.

On the Saturday, Alison started her tender driving lessons. The first lesson was how to fix a motor with only a pair of sunglasses as the tool kit. After this, it was how not to capsize. The day was spent converting El Coyote back from a cruise boat to a race boat.

Fortunately, Sunday was only practise racing, because as you can see Tony (lying down) was taking it easy on spinnaker trimming.

Sunday night after practice racing, just a few gentle beers on the beach. Not bad heh?

This was us going full bore in race trim. Weight on the rail as instructed to give us extra speed.

After a hard days racing, Chris and Thane enjoying a bite and a beer. This hospitality continued all week.

No, not Einstein, this is Kev our tactician doing an impression of a Thai boy's hairstyle.

This was the start of one of our races. It was very competitive. On the first day, we had windward - leeward racing (or round the cans for you land lubbers), second and third days were passage races, day four was a rest day. Day five was a race round Ko Samui Island itself. We chose to start at 8am, as the finish line was going to close at 6.30pm regardless. We felt we needed all of this time to get round the island. We had slight disadvantage starting early, as the forecast was for the winds to pick up later. More of this later.

Australian Maid, one of the boats competing in our class.

Ichiban, a boat we raced against in a previous regatta.

This is Cliff, showing Tony how to trim a spinnaker in proper racing mode.

This is Ichiban catching us up. We were absolutely flying, look at the wake coming off our stern.

This is Mikki and Garry after a race. She gave Garry a T shirt which he is very proud of, maybe you will see it one day...........

Back to the "round the island" race. This was our start, up at 5am, on the beach for 6.30am.

This was taken during the "round the island" race. Despite our early start, the wind had started to die off and the swanky race boats began to catch us. However, they don't always get it right despite fully trained professional crews with all the best equipment. This is Borocay, one of the top boats in Asia, stuck on a rock. We had seen it on our chart. Wonder why they didn't?

Still "round the island", we ran into a squall. The boat above is Hifi, that had just overtaken us. Not a problem as we were in a different racing class to them. The rest of our class at this point were five miles behind. We had the win in the bag. Shortly after this, the wind died and the race officials decided to abandon the race! We could see the finish line approximately half a mile away. Remember, the finishing line was supposed to stay open until 6.30pm and it was abandoned at 4.45pm! Very frustrating, finish line in sight, the rest of the fleet 5 miles behind. But heh, that's racing. Nevertheless, we had some very supportive comments from our fellow competitors.

As mentioned previously, some parts of Coyote are difficult to access. This is Tony in the anchor locker.

Chris and Hutch enjoying a drink, this time without falling off a motorbike! Chris, hope you feel better soon!

This is the second time that a Coyote shirt was on stage to collect a second place trophy. Overall, we finished fourth. Good result but if the abandoned race had finished, we would have been second.

After the racing was over, it was time to pack up and go back to Pattaya. Gary had blagged a spare boom off another boat. Fun and games loading it first onto the tender, then onto Coyote.
The journey back was absolutley amazing. We had the wind on the beam, travelled 178 nautical miles in 24 hours and 193 miles before we put in our first gybe. The night sail was terrific, with a clear sky and a full moon. It was almost like daylight and as the sea was a little rough, there were hardly any fishing boats to dodge around. Talking of fishing, Gary did buy a new lure and as luck would have it, we got a bite on the way back. As always, the one that got away was the biggest. In truth it was indeed huge, but we didn't get the chance to eat it.

And finally, check out fellow sailor Tony, drumming his socks off in the Coyote bar in Samui.

After sailing back to Pattaya, we hung around a few days, did some work, had a party and relaxed. We have since moved on and are now in Cyprus. We have a few thank yous to our friends in Thailand.

Gary, thanks for enabling us and the other Coyote crew members by providing a brilliant boat, a sense of humour and a competitive spirit. By the way, is the engine fixed yet?

Adrian, thanks for training Garry on boat repairing skills, the loan of your men and your tools.

Scott, thanks for the enthusiasm, encouragement and never ending smile.

Paul and Jojo, thanks for looking after us and putting on a great party for our last night in Thailand.

Tony, thanks for letting us chill out round your pool, and for the loan of your car and Schumacker.

Finally, thanks to all our fellow El Coyote crew. It was great sailing with you and we look forward to seeing you again.

Just popping down the job centre, will be in touch soon.

Garry and Alison

El Coyote's Identity Crisis

We had a few days of work to do before setting off to Ko Samui for the regatta. This time instead of sailing straight to Samui, we took four days to cruise down whilst one of our crew (Thane) completed his Bareboat Charter training course. The cruise down was a fun packed trip, with good winds, good food and a good laugh.

This is El Coyote moored in Ocean Marina undergoing final preparation. Adrian, (Gary's son) and his team, very kindly helped get the jobs finished on time. Once again Alison was up the mast (this time abandoned for an hour or so whilst Garry went shopping), she loves it up there but did come down with a touch of sunburn.

On Alison's 24th birthday, Tony had a barbeque. Normally when it rains, the barbie gets moved inside. Tony was unpeturbed and just moved the barbie into the bathroom. Gary and Pum bought a fabulous chocolate cake which was a real treat. A good time was had by all.

After the barbeque, the final work was completed. This is Adrian's team cleaning the boat.

On the way to Ko Samui, we had good strong winds. Spot the deliberate mistake above.

Actually it's not a mistake, we had to cook at an angle of 45 degrees. Good job the boat has a gimbled cooker! Not a drop of tomato sauce was spilt. It's good laugh chopping onions whilst they rolled around the galley.

The delivery crew from right are Thane, Freddie, Gary, Alison and Garry (behind the camera).
The boat is also gimbled!

We ran into a little squall which as you can tell was a bit of a challenge. The helmsman (Gary) is stood up straight, it's the boat that's leaning over. The toe rail was in the water and just for a laugh, Gary was ordering Garry round the boat to do very important jobs, such as, recover the bbq lid which was hanging the wrong side of the rail and tighten the clutch on the fishing rod. Just as well he fixed the rod as look what happened next.

Gary with his first ever fish. This easily fed all five of us when we barbequed it in foil pockets the next night on the boat. It is a striped makerel.

This is Freddie the cocktail queen. She magicked up some great drinks and salads.

However, Alison's attempt at cooking was not quite as successful. Check out the well done bacon!

We moored up here one night, but didn't realise how gorgeous it was until the morning. We're not sure it will be there much longer as the pillar in the middle is eroding quickly. The Gulf of Thailand is such a perfect cruising ground with empty sandy beaches, warm seas and good weather (normally!).

Fish number two, even bigger. This one is currently in the freezer ready for the trip back. We may need to invite some friends to eat it all.

Who says palm trees do not grow in the Gulf of Thailand? Garry's eyes were on other things. It is also very rare to see a bowman on the helm (maybe as they cannot see trees).

Fish number three. It looks green on the picture but is nearer to yellow. It is a yellow finned dorada which allegedly tastes lovely, but that too is in the freezer waiting its destiny. As always, the one that got away is the biggest, but you may be able to see more than half of our lure is missing. A huge fish took it along with one of the hooks. Just as we are writing this, the skipper is off to buy a new one for the return journey.

This is the fish celebration party, with Freddie and Garry dancing in the cockpit. Maybe a few too many cocktails were consumed as Garry struggled to get to bed in what he thought were 3 metre swells when it was actually flat calm.

This is where we anchored on the final night after a journey with 30 knots of wind and 9.4 knots of boat speed. Yeeha, wild ride! How pretty is the fishing village above?

These are the fishing boats we motored past early morning, before all hell broke loose again. Just after this picture was taken, we found ourselves again in 30 knots of wind. We had to get the sunshade down whilst we were still in our pyjamas.

The title of the blog relates to the different guises that El Coyote takes on. In the last blog, she was a racing boat (remember we won), on the trip down she was a cruise boat, but she has a hidden talent as a fishing boat.

We are writing this during the "rest" day - a holiday, from our holiday, at Ko Samui Regatta. So far we have three days of great racing but more of that on the next blog.

Alison and Garry