Back Impression: 2006-11-10 ‘Paradise lost, Paradise Found’...... Sailing in Thailand Text: Rick Nieman Photographs: Sacha de Boer Forget the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. Don’t pick Porto Cervo or St. Thomas as the destination for your next big sailing trip, but Phuket, Thailand. Those who want to try something new, might want to consider the islands of the Andaman Sea around Phuket. It is an excellent alternative destination. The destructive tsunami naturally set back the development of this region, but as newsanchors Sacha de Boer and Rick Nieman discovered during a trip with the Swan 59 Boléro, Thailand has gotten back on its feet. Route: Day 1: Kata beach Ao Chalong Day 2: Ao Chalong Ko Ratcha Yai Ko Phi Phi Don Day 3: Ko Phi Phi Don Ko Phi Phi Leh Ko Phi Phi Don Day 4: Ko Phi Phi Don Ko Lanta Day 5: Ko Lanta Ko Dam Hok & Ko Dam Khwan Day 6: Ko Dam Hok & Ko Dam Khwan Ko Yao Yai Day 7: Ko Yao Yai Ko Sup Phang Nga Bay Leam Prhao (Phuket) I hesitate for a moment and look around me. I see the dark green hills surrounding the bay, the white beach with its deckchairs and small eateries, the imposing sailing yacht on which I’m standing. Then I dive into the deep blue water. One stroke, two and the fatigue of the long flight from Amsterdam disappears instantly. Back on deck I take a shower to rinse off the salt water. As I’m doing so, skipper Ed climbs up from the hold, carrying four glasses and a bottle of champagne. A gift from a satisfied client, he grins. From invisible loudspeakers come the soft sounds of Ravels Boléro, an appropriate welcoming tune. The Dutch flag flies proudly on the stern of the boat. We toast, and Carla, Ed’s wife, says To a good trip! I wink at Sacha and think: that shouldn’t be a problem. The next morning. The Boléro cuts through the water like a knife. The wind gage fluctuates between 16 and 18 meters wind a second, five on the Beaufort scale. Ed gives short and crisp orders....tighter that line tighten it up....stop! - and the speedometer creeps slowly higher. Eight knots, nine!The sail is set a little tighter and then Ed hollers "Ten!" Day one, and we’ve hit the sailing jackpot. Sacha and I look at each other and smile. We own our own sailboat as well, a seven-and-a-half meter flat bottom, but now we’re in a different league. The Boléro sails on, the mist of the waves crashing against the hull wafts over the boat and in the distance we see the contours of the island Ko Ratcha Yai. We’ll have lunch there and we’ll swim a little, Ed had said that morning, and then in the afternoon we’ll go to Ko Phi Phi Don. Have you seen the film ‘The Beach’ with Leonardo di Caprio? It was filmed on a small island near there. Our week-long trip will take us past ten islands in the Andaman Sea, east of Phuket. We pass fairly busy villages with various hotels, restaurants and café’s, but we also visit completely deserted places where all we hear is the sound of the waves, the soft rustling of the palm trees in the wind, the water gently beating against our ship. Each day starts with a dive in the ocean and breakfast of fresh tropical fruits. Then we sail, or if there’s not much wind we turn on the engine and count the flying fish. In the afternoon, when we have found our anchorage for the day, we swim some more, or snorkel between the tropical fish that inhabit the coral. That is followed by an extensive dinner and we close off the evening with a last drink on deck underneath the imposing heavens with their millions and millions of stars. It is a daily routine one could easily get used to The jumping off point for our trip is the elongated island of Phuket in the southwest of Thailand. Phuket has an international airport with direct connections to Europe and 16 daily flights to Bangkok. It is the richest province of Thailand; the Straight of Malacca is nearby, and because of that Chinese tradesmen have been coming here for thousands of years. From the 16th century onwards, Dutch and Portugese merchant vessels have passed through here as well. Trade has long been surpassed by tourism as the main source of income: the island is populated by tens of luxurious resorts. There are three big marina’s, with another six (!) in the planning stages. And we’re not talking about a few jetty’s, a couple of coin-operated showers and a small supermarket, but about extensive, luxurious marina’s with upmarket apartments and hotels, various restaurants, and even things such a hairdresser, a fashion store and a chocolaterie. Is has little to do with sailing, but it shows the ambition level, here. In a circle of some 25 sea miles from Phuket you will find hundreds of Bounty islands, and the weather is always good, even in the rainy season. Oh well, Ed says, even though it rains every day that only lasts for an hour. After that it’s dry and nice again. At the end of our first day we anchor in the bay off Ko Phi Phi (Ko means island), take another dive and have a cold beer on the aft deck. The wind has died down, and it has cooled off nicely. It’s the kind of temperature you don’t actually feel. Ed and Carla tell great stories about their voyage around the world; it’s true that one who travels has much to tell. And when the setting sun colors the sky above the bay in tens of different tones of red, from light pink to deep scarlet, for once ‘Paradise Island’, is nót some tacky headline from a travel brochure. Then again Phi Phi Don was one of the hardest hit places in the tsunami of Boxing Day 2004. On the island itself you can hardly tell. Yes, there’s lot’s of building activity, but there’s lot’s of building activity everywhere in Thailand: the local economy is booming. Only if you know that the small stretch of beach that connects the hills on the left and right sides of the island once housed a large hotel that was completely wiped away, only then do you realize with which power the water has hit here. "I was having breakfast, that morning, and suddenly I saw little circles in my coffee. I looked to see if someone or something was hitting the table, but no. Then I felt the ground shake ever so slightly. But otherwise, nothing. Speaking is Pieter Koch, a 28-year old Dutchman who was here during the tsunami. We meet him on the island. He tells us of his experiences, that day. But when a few hours later people came running toward me, in panic, screaming about the water that was coming, I was suddenly very alert. I felt something was very, very wrong. That day and the weeks that followed were live-changing for the recently graduated law student. He helped people fleeing into the mountains, assisted in the transfer of victims to the mainland and worked as a translator for stricken tourists in a local hospital. He went back to the Netherlands, but couldn’t find his place. And so he was back in Phi Phi Don two months later. I was amazed at how quickly people here picked up their daily routines again. How they dealt with the loss of all these loved ones, family members, friends. People here have a different relation with death. It is seen more as a natural part of life. Perhaps it is their spirituality, I don’t know.... Pieter started a cocktail club, which also has a tree house in which you can lounge. The tree survived the onslaught of the tsunami, unlike many man-made structures next to it. We have a mojito and a pina colada and Pieter takes up his place behind the turntable. A European couple gets engaged on the beach. The name of Pieters club: Carpe Diem." The general attitude of the Thai people indeed seems to be one of seize-the-day. As we’re walking, one morning, past a market stall and Ed stops for a second to look at something, the owner asks: You like? No money: Ed replies jokingly. No money? she replies, without missing a beat. No money? Go work! which she follows with a hearty laugh. The Thai inhabitants are open and friendly on these islands, which have yet to be hit by mass tourism. At the fish-display in front of a small restaurant, I ask the boy behind it: This fish from today? and I point to a beautiful Red Snapper with bright eyes and gleaming scales. He nods and pulls open its gills to show how nicely bled-through they are. This fish, today. This fish, and he points to a fish with red eyes and dull skin, this fish, yesterday. We pick two fishes from today and have one served grilled with just some lemongrass, and the other wrapped in aluminum foil with garlic, chili and soy sauce. Add a cold beer, fried rice, extremely fresh calamari, stir-fried vegetables: heavenly! We eat well all week long: either with our feet in the sand in a small restaurant on one of the islands, or on board. Carla just as easily prepares a lukewarm Thai beef salad as a crispy homemade (or is it boatmade?) pizza, just as quickly fresh fish from a local fisherman as ciabatta with French brie, just as pleasantly an omelet with fresh herbs from one of the local markets as a nearly-perfect tiramisu. Ed makes sure the food is accompanied by a fresh red Julienas or a Sauvignon Blanc. And we? We just enjoy it all. We enjoy the food, the people, the local pleasures such as a Thai massage under a palm tree on the beach, with just the sounds of the birds in the trees above us, and the crashing of the waves on the beach. As I groan because the masseuse yet again squeezes me hard amazing how such a small girl can have such strong hands! she asks me, You like? I nod. You like, she says, me happy! I smile at her, look at Sacha who is being massaged right next to me and dream off again. I could use that massage, by the way. Because aboard the Boléro there’s plenty of work to be done. It’s voluntary, though: there’s no obligation to work, but who wants to help, definitely can. Carla and Ed sailed this ship around the world with just the two of them, so they can manage by themselves. But if you want to help..Of course I get subjected, one of the first days, to the test of how high I can hoist the mainsail. I don’t want to make a bad impression, so I put my hands on the rope, and pull. And pull, and pull. And perhaps it’s because I’ve sailed on 80-foot, old clippers which don’t have electric winches, so you learn there how to hoist hard but I get the main sail almost to the top. Carla watches, gently amused. You see that Ed? He’s hoisted that mainsail higher than that Russian guy, the body-builder we had on board last week! I don’t say anything, but I feel secretly proud. And when Sacha and I allow ourselves to be hoisted up in the 20-meter high mast (Sacha to take pictures, I so as not to stay behind), we’ve proven ourselves, I think. But when Ed sees a day later how I try to tidy up a Kevlar line, but make a complete mess of it, he puts me back with both feet on the ground. Shall I show you how to do it? Again? he says smiling. But I learn more in a week than normally in an entire season. About how you can best set your sails with what wind, about how you steer a ship as large as a Swan 59 around treacherously shallow spots even with 15 meters wind a second -, about navigating, laying knots and anchoring. Ed explains everything in typical skipper-mode: straight, with no frills, honest and friendly. Skipping back to Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Beach island for a second: the beach made famous by the film is visited fairly heavily by people taking daytrips from the mainland with typical Thai longtail boats. But Ed knows the area so well by now, that he comes up with an alternative. Around the corner of the beach of Hollywood-fame, lies a bay of stunning beauty. When we visit is, there’s nobody there. In Ao Phi Le (Ao means bay) rocks of grey chalk rise up more than a hundred meters from the turquoise water. Trees perch precariously on the most impossible places, swallows build their nests more than hundred meters high. The only sign of human life are intricate constructions of bamboo, built against the steep rocks by sea gypsies, a special people who try to harvest the swallow’s nests, which they sell to expensive Chinese restaurants. A few days after our trip, in Bangkok, bird’s nest soup indeed shows up on a menu, for more than 30 Euro a serving. Which is a fortune, here. We don’t order it. After a week’s sailing we come back to Phuket. We anchor in front of The Yacht Haven, the oldest marina of the island. We celebrate our last evening together in the open restaurant there and we joke that Hemingway can walk in any moment now, that’s the kind of atmosphere it has when Ed announces that he’ll check out the wine being served here. A little later he comes back, a big smile on his face. You won’t believe this! he says, and he pulls a bottle of white whine from behind his back. On the label it says: Boléro. It just doesn’t get any better than this...