We wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year!

Today is January 8th and we are slowly, slowly sailing from Ao Chalong to Patong which to Kári´s thorough delight we did manage to reach in time for the big ´show´. To Skotta´s my dismay the evening and night was not quietly beautiful with silent lamps gliding along the starlit sky. Huge fireworks (that in Iceland are called Tivoli Bombs) lit up the sky, the powder smell was considerable, the light show amazing and Skotta walked about twice her usual size hissing - but Kári was thrilled:D

It seems as though Patong Beach is getting famous for the (wonderful?) show and we saw boats arriving into the anchorage well into the night. We stopped counting the boats when we reached 70 - never seen so many boats in this anchorage.

The next day I was eager to get the paperwork done so that I could take a long good walk. Therefore we headed for Ao Chalong immediately, hoping the information about January 2nd being a holiday was wrong.
When there is holiday here one has to pay, but not on other days. On January 2nd we put the dinghy down in pouring rain and thoroughly disgusted with the total lack of dinghy dock landed (not quite drenched but) very wet on the beach by the offices, hoping the AC was not blasting on full in there.
As soon as we entered we saw a big January 2nd in red above the immigration officer and (too late to return) gruntingly started filling out the endless forms along with rather grumpy ten or so skippers.

The beginning of 2012 has been fun and I have thoroughly enjoyed Anneke's company ashore, showing her places of interest while the captains attend to unfinished chores. One of Dirk's unfinished task was to attend to an ailment in Narid's steering, unfortunately that repair is proving somewhat more arduous than anticipated, so while they are still with Ao Chalong we decided to visit Patong Beach again where it is much easier to go ashore and fill our larder amiably, as well as buying presents.
We hope the repair aboard Narid goes well and we would love their company when we sail towards Burma.