We’re back. Yeah, 30 days passes quickly the way we cruise. We like to stop and smell the flowers but 30 days barely gives us enough time to see them, yet alone to smell them.
We’ve circumnavigated Tarutao. We motored back to Satun with relatively calm seas and entered on a high tide. No issues. Great. We anchored further up the river hoping to get away from the early morning long tail traffic. We prefer to sleep past 3 am. That appeared to be when many of the long tails head out. Anchoring anywhere in the Satun canal is much like parking your motor home in the middle of a six lane highway. Constantly there is traffic.
We are not totally successful. There might be a slight decrease in the early morning traffic. I didn’t count. Throughout the day traffic appears the same. However; two other activities have replaced the lower traffic.
In this area; this Satun canal is the center of one of the fishing fleets. There is a boat yard and it is grinding away on a new wooden live aboard. Some of the larger vessels in the fishing fleet are hauled out with their corresponding pounding and welding. And… in a reminder of what Indonesia was like; we are in the audio distance of four Mosques. But; we had to come back. We’re required to check out of the port we cleared in at; so here we are.
After a few weeks away from city life we were running low on fresh supplies. Low on fresh fruits and vegetables, low on treats, drinks, and ice. We are after all Americans and we love our ice. Once settled in we looked at transportation to Satun. That and a place to dispose of our garbage. Yeah, products we buy are often wrapped in plastic, paper or metal. We collect it and do our best to properly dispose of it. The sea is plenty polluted, no need for us to add any more to it.
Using the Web we have read that we could take the dinghy up to the immigration / ferry dock and leave it there. So we tooled there and; well, leaving the dinghy there didn’t look the best. I had put the wheels on thinking we would pull it up on the ramp and tie it to a tree. It was low tide, the ramp looked slick, there was another larger local boat on it and W/ got the heebee jeebees thinking about the process. We headed back searching elsewhere.
Along the shore there appeared another dock, almost like a park dock. We call it a “Drunk Dock” as it had the blue floats. We pulled up to it and asked a local if we can leave the dinghy there. Yep. Great! I found a refuse container near by and we were able to deposit our garbage. Sweet, next step, getting a ride to Makro; a supermarket with loads of goods.
One of the locals wanted us to ride with him on a scooter. We don’t prefer to use scooters but we have. We feel a lot safer in an automobile and we didn’t know what the roads here would be like. Fifteen minutes later we had a ride and were on our way.
It was a good feeling getting fresh food and filling up our soon to be consumed stores. There was one very sad note at the time. They only had small packages of M & M Peanuts. I didn’t pick up any. I switched to Snickers. Not the worst snack but it would need to do. We didn’t find of the cereal liked. We had purchased and stored enough for this trip so… all was good.
With the cart full we paid and began the search for a return ride to Tamalang. Most everywhere in SE Asia we’ve used Grab and it has served us well. We arrived here using a Grab. I opened up the app and chose where our original point of departure. I waited. And waited. Nothing. I tried another ride share; InDrive. Nothing. Tried a third; Bolt. Nothing. By now 30 minutes had passed and we had… nothing. Makro is a bit N of Satun and there wasn’t much around. We were too far to walk. I tried all the apps going to the Bus station. At the Bus station I thought we might be able to secure a taxi. But that too was a fail. I considered offering money to shoppers for a lift back. With my size; approaching people and asking for something even if we were willing to pay just didn’t seem like a workable idea. A police vehicle showed up. I went to talk with him. He looked for minute like he might give me a lift back. But when I showed him the groceries and W/ he balked at the idea. By now people were interested. Till then we were just another set of boring tourists.
W/ thought maybe she could go in the store and see if someone spoke enough English and might assist. Another what seemed like 30 minutes went by. Out she came with some direction. Maybe ! We needed to download the app LineMan. Ok… I downloaded the app and went to register. The program wants to confirm who I am with a phone number. A Thailand phone number! Only expecting to be here for 30 days I put our Malaysian number on roaming. We didn’t have a Thailand number. This app is not going to work. W/ heads back inside.
She chats up with the female store employee and is able to explain the issue. They used Google translate with each other with some success. She comes out of the store with W/ and said she would help. She used her LineMan app and connects with a ride. She would do the negotiating when he arrived … in 10 minutes. Yeah!
Ten minutes passed, then another 10 and then as W/ was ready to check with the women assisting; out of the store she and another employee came and pointed to the vehicle. We had a ride! She spoke with him and for 500 BHT we would get back to the dinghy and the boat. W/ tried to give the her a little something but she woudn’t take it. As others had been witnessing of our dilemma; when we loaded into the vehicle they too were smiling. Glad to see that we’re on our way.
Our driver returned us to exactly where our dinghy was tied up. I had pointed out a wrong turn but we did get back on track. As W/ often says, I ought to keep quiet. 🙂 I added a bonus for him, we unloaded and thanked him with the few Thai words we know. His English was much better than our Thai and we; mostly W, had chatted him up on our return trip. We’re back. We’re back! Whoopee! Alka-selzer isn’t the only relief one can find when out cruising.
Go Slow
Sail Far
Stay Long
ps By the way if any are readding this and want to pick up supplies in Satun; the much better place is Big C; still in Satun.
