After doing some serious fix-up on our engines and some serious touring of the outback, Moondance and crew were ready to forge onward for what we knew would be some of the most intensive mile-making of our journey - to get to and through the Red Sea by early spring.

We left Darwin November 13, a bit later than recommended, as cyclone season had already officially started. We headed due north to lessen the risk of storms, and found instead that rather than storm wind, the real problem was lack of wind. We went day after day of either drifting slowly with the spinnaker, trying to eek out a few knots from the zephyrs that covered parts of the sea, or intermitent thunderstorms. Most of the miles came from running under engine power. After several days of this, we found ourselves very short on fuel. Then one morning, Karl was on sunrise watch when the rest of us below heard some yelling, then a loud "thunk" as a large fishing boat pulled up alongside. The fishing boat, which had come close to offer us some fish, responded instead to Karl's pleas for fuel - he held up our empty jerry cans shouting the universal term"diesel?". The boat cheerfully filled up two 60 liter jerry cans and refused to accept any cash payment. We found them a chocolate bar and a Playboy magazine and they gratefully accepted our trade.

As we siphoned in the fuel, powered up and motored away, the fishing boat stayed strangely still in the calm seas, never moving from the place we left them. It must have been a while since they had chocolate.

The fuel gave us the miles we needed to get to Bali. We pulled into the harbor to find so much trash and debris that we could hardly imagine where Bali got its reputation as a world-class paradise. The marina there barely hung together but offered an easy base for our short stay. We bought some veggies, treated ourselves to a Balinese dinner and dancing show for Thanksgiving and also bought some extra jerry jugs to carry more fuel to take us to Thailand. After buying the fuel at only about 10cents per liter, we were really glad that we had all the extra capacity. This way we could motor all the way to Singapore if necessary.

As we left Bali and rounded to the north, the swirly currents threatened to keep us from making any forward progress at all! We had to search the channel for areas with less current to keep moving and then motor our hearts out to get into bigger water. Finally we made it out to where our only problem was the multitude of small fishing boats, some with only cigarettes as night-time lights! Then, as we neared one of the more remote Indonesian Islands, we started seeing what looked like floating palm trees in the distance. Not sure what these were, we motored up close to see what looked like a crudely constructed raft with a tall wood and palm leaf structure attached. These things appeared to be some sort of ceremonial raft and we saw at least a half dozen of them. Thankful that we were through this area in the daylight, we proceeded north in relatively open seas with little traffic and on towards Singapore.

As we neared the Singapore Straits, the traffic increased, until we found ourselves dodging more tankers and container ships than we'd ever seen before - even in Panama. Our short stay at Changi Sailing Club was fine and we enjoyed the 'big city' experience that Singapore offers. At the same time, though, we were very aware of the government 'presence'. Everything from buses to vacation getaway homes are owned and controlled by the govt. We took the opportunity to see some recently released movies (James Bond and Toy Story 2) loaded up on fuel and continued north.

Having been amazed at the number of big boats on the way into Singapore, it turuned out to be merely the tip of the iceberg as we headed around the island and up the Malacca straits into Malaysia. The waters around Singapore were so thick with anchored and moving tankers that we thought we were seeing uncharted islands as darkness fell and the lights were all we saw. We picked our way through this area and moved up into Malaysia, keeping careful watch and trying to stay just a bit out of the shipping lane.

As we made our way up the Malacca Straits along the western Malaysian coast we were amazed at the huge modern-looking cities along the shoreline and sad that we didn't have time to stop. This is also an area that we had heard could be subject to some piracy but we hadn't heard anything specific. As much traffic as there was, we found it hard to feel very threatened and had no trouble at all.

While we carried plenty of fuel on this passage, we soon found that we had wind too...naturally, it blew against us, building to 35 knots. We took a bit of a pounding for two days, deciding each evening that there was no reason to lose sleep in this stuff and so the anchor went down at dusk - an unusual step for us - must be getting old.

Finally, a few miles out of Thailand, the wind shifted and we were able to reach handily into Ao Chalong (Ao means bay in Thai). Here was one of the first places we've been where we not only didn't speak the language, we couldn't read the alphabet! Not to worry, though, Phuket is a yachting and holiday mecca, so most signs are in English text as well as Thai. We soon found why Phuket is so popular. The bays and beaches are beautiful, the people are lovely and ooooo the Thai food! Not only that, it's really inexpensive, if you stay away from the resorts. With so many boats here for the holidays, Ben and Cam found new kid friends to play with. We took advantage of the resources in Phuket town to have our aging cushions recovered, our bimini replaced and upgraded for more shade, and we finally had a mast made for our wind generator.

We enjoyed a happy Christmas with Santa having once again somehow located us - how does he do it! Later, we celebrated with other cruisers over a beach campfire and potluck dinner. The joy of the holiday was darkened, however, by a terrible accident aboard a friend's dinghy. A passenger sitting on the bow fell out of the boat and was run over by the outboard. He suffered a deep cut to his head. Fortunately, an Australian bush nurse was nearby on an anchored boat and through radio relays ashore an ambulance was called very quickly. The man, named Peter, was OK after three layers of stitching to close the wound. We had heard of one other accident just like this, where the daughter of a friend of ours fell off the bow and swam deep to avoid injury. She was lucky - the clear lesson is never ride the bow of the dinghy.

We spent the next few days exploring the island of Phuket by car, scooter and on foot. By New Year's Eve, we had migrated to Ao Patong, along with over 100 other boats. This bay is the most heavily populated with hotels and was reported to be the wildest fireworks show around. We celebrated the millenium with friends, moving back to our own boat before midnight to guard against falling embers and flares (a year before a boat had been badly burned). At midnight the sky flared and roared with hundreds of fireworks, some small some huge, as though the hotels had a fireworks contest going. Many yachts shot off fireworks and flares too, as did many tourists on the beach, so the sky stayed lit and the booming kept going for at the next hour. We welcomed the new millenium with Champagne and Sprite aboard Moondance and many hugs and kisses.

THE NEW YEAR'S CONGREGATION IN PATONG BAY

After the New Year's celebration, we took off for a week exploring Phang Nga Bay, one of the most bizarrely beautiful places we've ever been. the islands soar straight up out of the water and contain numerous caves and hidden lagoons, called hongs. As one friend put it, this is one of the only places that is really understated in the guidebooks. One of the islands here is known as 'James Bond' island since scenes from Man with the Golden Gun were filmed there. The boys loved exploring the caves by dinghy and kayak and we were just in awe of the place day after day. Finally, though, it came time to think about our next journey west and we headed back to Phuket to prepare for our departure into the Indian Ocean.

PIX FROM PHANG NGA BAY