Maldives!!

We've reached the Maldives and are very much still alive!

Major updates including lots of pictures with not a lot of clothes to come shortly!!

Check-in/OK message from Øyvind på Tur SPOT Messenger

Øyvind på Tur
Latitude:6.76674
Longitude:74.4781
GPS location Date/Time:01/13/2010 19:45:29 GMT

Click the link below to see where I am located.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=6.76674,74.4781&ll=6.76674,74.4781&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1
Message:Fra de seilende:
Egil og Øyvind seiler avgårde og har det bra!
Egil and Øyvind are sailing happily along and are OK

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MERRY CHRISTMAS

AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

See you all on the Maldives

Everything new!

We are preparing ourselves for part two of our adventure: Giant Indian Ocean, pirated Red Sea passage, motoring the Suez Channel, the all too long Mediterranean,the fierce Bay of Biscay and eventually the brutal Norwegian coast. For this, two brand new Hong Kong made sails (jib and light wind genoa), a new well used dinghy with a 3,5 outboard (the old one was stolen in Krabi) and a perfectly overhauled main-engine have been added to the update list. We are ready for everything.

Multi-tool Kjell (Øyvinds father) will join us for the passage across the Indian Ocean, and has been an essential part of our preparations here in our Phuket marina.

We are also filled up with food again. We just saw the last of our New Zealand stock-up go away some weeks ago. Hopefully this will last us another seven months.

Muay Thai

Break!

I am so tired I line up with my knees in the ground, my upper body leaning on my gloved fists. I take the first push-up.
ONE
Shit! I can't do my push-ups on my knees like a little girl. I straighten out my legs. I hate my pride.
TWO
I could have been surfing in Phuket now. WHY did I go back here?
THREE, FOUR, FIVE
I notice a small brown stain on the canvas under me. A dried-out drop of blood. A punch that landed a bit too hard on a nose during sparring probably.
SIX, SEVEN
I am starting to catch my breath again now. This is not normal. I am doing push-ups during the "break" and I am actually resting from the round of pad-work I have just done.
EIGHT
....Or I could be climbing in Krabi.
NINE, TEN!
I get up after sitting on my knees breathing for a few seconds. OK, can't sit around here too long, the break is just one minute, I've done push-ups for about 20 seconds, and I have some more five-minute rounds of kicking and punching the pads that Wang is holding. I need to get some water. I stumble over to the corner where my cup is. I pick it up clumsily with my big boxing-gloves on. I want to swallow it all in one gulp, but I force myself do take small sips. Just half a cup, any more and I'll be fighting the urge to puke for the next five minutes. I want to drink five cups! I compromise by pouring the rest of the ice-cold water over my head.

BREAK OVER! FIVE MINUTES, LAU LAU LAU!

Ten kicks right foot, ten kicks left. Jab, punch, elbow-elbow, knee. Knee not good enough, again!
I'm on my second visit to the thaiboxing-gym in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. It's been exactly two years since my last visit here. I didn't really expect it, but it was really like coming home. The neighbourhood has not changed much. I recognize the tailor on the corner as I give him a shirt to repair, as I did the last time I was here. A couple of new buildings, the barber has shifted a block and some french expats has opened a really nice coffeshop that is visited by one or two tourists pr. day.

I was here for six weeks the last time, and I left in something very close to the best physical shape of my life. When I arrive for my scheduled two weeks I am probably close to my worst, and already the second day I can hardly walk down the stairs in the morning. The 2x2,5 hours of constantly working on my toes the day before has made me realise how I probably will feel every day in about 60 years, when I am 89! (Yes, I'll live to see 89. The average Norwegian life-expectancy is rising, and I am born lucky, OK?) After three days my my stupid body finally understands that there is no point complaining and the aches start to subside. Good thing, as I was contemplating beginning to roll down the stairs in the mornings as it is probably less painful.
I've been looking forward to coming here. Get a rest from boats, sails and oceans. Meeting up with some of the people I met here the last time. I am also thinking of coming back here in a year to stay for longer. Three, maybe four months. Have time to get some fights, and to really get back in shape. After a week here with two trainings per day I'm sure I will come back.

After five days and ten trainings I join Stephen along with most of the people from the gym to the boxing stadium. Stephen is half German, half Liberian, he works as an actor and has never trained Muay Thai before. He has trained at the gym for three and a half weeks now and he is having his first fight tonight. A few hours later he is slightly disappointed. He has won. Knock-out by knee after two minutes, a bit too quick he thinks.

Deep Water Soloing Langkawi

Deep Water Soloing (DWS): The art of climbing without the protection of a rope over water deep enough to (hopefully) safely facilitate your falling/jumping into it at any point of the climb.

Julian finally showed his jetlagged face, and we could move on from Langkawi towards Thailand. ..but first: some climbing. ...And even before that: getting out to the boat. This proved interesting as the onshore wind was quite strong. So strong that we had no chance of launching the dinghy, especially without getting all of Julians luggage wet. To complicate matters a wee bit the boat were not exactly in a protected anchorage. She was pitching violently in the swell and since our anchorchain is a bit worn (to the point of leaving about 100 grams of flaking rust on deck pr. 30 metres chain/pr. anchoring) we decided we needed to move the boat anyway. And with no chance of launching the dinghy it was decided that I should swim the 4-500 metres out through the waves. Luckily Julian had brought a diving mask as well as a pair of fins with him. That eased the trip, but it was still a bit on the interesting side.


Well off from Langkawi a few hours later than planned we went straight for this spot we'd found on our way to Langkawi. It is a sort of lagoon made up of limestone island with an endless number of possible bouldering routes. We stayed a few days climbing until the whining about sore hands (and in my and Egils case: sore muscles) became unbearable. A lot of the rock is pretty sharp, forcing the climber to sacrifice a fair amount of skin to do the route. Seven months on a sailboat have left Egil and me with nothing but a faint memory of any kind of physical qualities we were once in posession of, such as stamina or strength, so we headed on, gently massaging sore muscles.

We headed for the Langkawi capital of Kuah in a nice 14-16 knot blow, and reached it the same evening, right after nightfall. Mission: buy booze and cigarettes, take on diesel and water, drop off Øyvind, clear out of Malaysia. This was acomplished in full the day after arriving. I hopped off the sailboat to hop on to the ferry over to Thailand. The plan to go to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand to revisit the Thaiboxing (muay thai) gym I spent six weeks training with two years ago, to train a bit for a change and get my ass kicked around by small thais.

Egil and Julians plan was to sail on to Thailand, stop on some of the islands along the way, do some more climbing and generally pass the time as comfortably and good as they see fit. How that is going I have no idea at the time of writing, but I doubt they're having any trouble fulfilling any of those objectives.

A rush through the islands of Pankor, Pinang, Payar and Langkawi (yes, we're still talking Western Malaysia here!)

Pankor Island. Not much to report about Pankor really. We tried to buy some engine oil from the local fishing-boat suppliers, but they could only sell us the oil in 200 litre drums, and since having a five year supply of 15W-40 oil lashed to the foredeck would be somewhat cumbersome we decided to buy oil elsewhere.

Also we met up again with the french guys. We had a great barbeque-evening where we ate some self-caught sea-food and played guitar and drank a few beers. By the end of our stay in Pankor we had managed to lure the french into joining us for a couple of days. This was triple awesome, as we were then able to enjoy Mickael's guitar-playing, Mathilde's cooking and Nico and Mickael's advice on how to properly sail a boat. After seven months of continous sailing we were finally able to get ourselves some instruction...

After a few days of luxurious cruising with a huge crew allowing us to overdose on sleep and we made it Pinang/Georgetown where Nico and Mathilde took off on their own. Mickael stayed on and we reinforced the crew with Maxi from Argentina who contributed with a complete lack of sailing experience, a great deal of enthusiasm and heaps of bad jokes for our pool of dodgy humour. Then we took off to The Great Tax-Free Island of Langkawi, by way of The National Park Island of Payar, where we did a bit of freediving and Maxi got his first proper sailing lesson which abrubtly ended when the wind decided to terminate the ordeal by capsizing the sailing dinghy. This resulted in some hurt pride and some help from one of the diving companies in the area, great fun!

Langkawi. Tax-Free heaven. Stocked up on booze and cigarettes which we intend to bribe our way through Africa with. Other than that, we played cards in restaurants while waiting for the inevitable daily rainshowers to finish, played more guitar, drank some more and (in the case of Maxi and Øyvind) watched some Thaiboxing fights, this great asian blend of culture, sport and ultra-violence. Great show! We generally passed the time living life slowly, blending in with the crowds of backpackers roaming the place. That and waiting for the arrival of Julian, Egils companion on epic moped-trips through Europe, and more recently; from LA to Buenos Aires, Argentina. It's all covered in minuscule yet highly entertaining detail and inventive english on Mopeddagboken.blogspot.com