A calm sunrise during the passage to the Andamans.

March 9, 2001 -- ANDAMAN PASSAGE

We went into Phuket Town in the morning to clear out with the Thai Customs and Immigration; destination: Andaman Islands. We sent our last e-mails. We came back to the dinghy with extra fruit, fresh bread, two bags of ice cubes, and our last load of clean laundry. We were ready -- but -- there was no wind. Not a breath. Not a whisper. Not a puff. Just brassy flat calm. Oh well, we've waited for wind before. There's always tomorrow. Which came and went without a sniffle of wind either. Frustrating!

Two days later we had made a big dent in the fruit, drank up half the cubes, and were rapidly piling sweaty clothes back in the laundry basket. No matter that it was a Friday. No matter that there still wasn't a cat's paw of breeze. We had to do something. We loaded the dinghy aboard and motored 18 miles to Patong Beach. At least we could have a swim and snorkel in the clear waters around the reefs. We could scrape the last few bits of growth off the propeller. And we could wait.

Woke up at 3am with lightning and thunder crashing around, some rain, but not as much as we expected. As the thunderstorms abated, a light northerly wind filled in. We set sail at dawn.

After all our waiting, and the dramatic arrival of the wind, the passage itself turned out to be somewhat of a non-event. The winds were light - mostly around 10 knots, not at all the typical 15-20 knot NE that this monsoon should deliver. We poked along about 4 knots most of the time, quite comfortable, open hatches and ports all the way. When the lack of wind brought our speed below 2 for any length of time, we turned on the engine. Usually we only needed 3 or 4 hours of motoring before the winds came back.

There were great swaths of current activity throughout the voyage. At times the currents manifested themselves with lumpy bumps along our path. Sometimes you could see variegated lines of ripples or whitecaps marking the edge of a current line. We never had the over falls that some boats experience in this area however.

We set the fishing lines out every morning, and every evening reeled them back in - empty handed; again. Had a few strikes -- just enough to keep us fishing, and hoping! We saw numerous dolphin. They were also fishing, and it must've been hard work for them as well. Only one family came over to play around our bow.

Night watches were made more friendly with the moon -- over half and growing. Lots of stars to keep us company too. We keep hoping to catch a sight of the space station one of these times, but no luck so far. We have tried various watch schedules over the years. What works for us now is 2 or 2 1/2 hours before midnight, and 2 hours from then to dawn. During the day we each get a morning or afternoon nap for as long as we want.

The harbor at Port Blair is closed to traffic during night hours. We thought we would have to reduce sails to slow down our time of arrival. Not so -- Mother Nature stepped right in, turned down the wind, and gave us an unfavorable current set as well. At times we were sailing a course 20 degrees higher than what the GPS was telling us we were making good!

All's well that ends well. Dropped our anchor at Port Blair, just behind Chatham Island, almost exactly 4 days after leaving Thailand's shores. Now the hard part -- checking in.