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Things are slowly getting back to normal here now. Apart from the Island of Phi Phi it is business as usual here in the area of Phuket and South to Langkawi.

The Thai people have bounced back with an amazing strength of character and are continuing with life. I have met and spoken to many local people and a lot have personal knowledge of people lost or missing. A few have lost family or friends.

However just over 2 weeks on, and the most tragic thing that is happening here now is that in the height of the tourist season here where the majority of locals rely in some way or other on thousands of visitors coming from Europe and else where. No one is coming. This area has suffered badly the last few years with visitors not coming because of Bali bombing, Sars, etc and now this.

The relief funds have been wonderful and I am sure the money will filter thru to the people on the ground sooner or later but probably the best help anyone could give these people now is to continue with travel plans to SE Asia and if a holiday is booked later in the season do not cancell!! As far as the yachting community is concerned, life goes on as normal with cruisers catching up on boat jobs repairing wave damage etc. The annual migration to the Red Sea has begun and we have seen off some good cruising friends on the way to Europe and the next adventure.

Barry & Lynette

Dear All

First of all thank you all for the many concerned e-mails we have just read. What we have seen on the news makes us very very fortunate to be around at all.

After a wonderful Christmas day we were still anchored off a very small Thai island called Ko Kradan. We were planning to motor over to a big island with a huge cave system that you can swim into a huge lagoon inside the island. I had left my sunglasses up at the resort where we had had Christmas dinner the night before so Barry took me into the small beach and I walked up the high path. I got my glasses and had a swim when I reached the beach waiting for Barry to collect me, we went back to our boat and went over to our friends boat for coffee.

Dawn and I were just drinking our coffee when we noticed the water boiling and bubbling all around the rocks and looked about to see what was happening, we called the men up in the cockpit and just then Dawn's boat a big 60ft yacht, started to spin round and round very fast. Barry and I saw Kay Sira (our 42ft sailing ketch) rising up very high and then I saw the wave that only showed its height about 2 boat lengths behind Kay Sira. I then saw a local island tour boat just cartwheel into the rocks on the beach and people being turned over in the wave which had to be 50ft high.

All hell broke lose but Kay Sira was still holding. Barry was in the dinghy and making his way to the screams coming from the beach. He pulled two small children out from all the rubbish in the water and then he pulled their mum out. After a while he found the father who had a bad cut to the head, he was floating amongst the rubbish. I cannot stress how lucky these people were not to have lost their lives. All 8 people from the tour boat were accounted for damaged but alive. Another wave came in and swamped the people on the beach whilst they were trying to give first aid. Barry managed to get all of them back to our friends boat where we bathed their wounds and tried to calm them. Barry then went and moved our boat and picked me up and we got out of there once we were happy we had helped where we could.

All the yachts had held. We did not know what had happened or if another huge wave was on its way. Gradually news filtered over the vhf radio what had happened and it made us feel very vulnerable - we had cheated death again!

We did not know where to go or which direction to take as we had heard that there were more earthquakes and more tidal waves on the way. We stayed in deep water and just listened to Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World service for more news. We were worried for our friends. Today we are in Krabi which because of its high sea wall does not look too bad until you see posters of missing persons including a little 3 year old girl missing - last seen out at one of the very small islands off here'.

We have heard our lovely comfortable safe marina is destroyed with many boats damaged or sunk and again we could have easily have been there and lost the boat. No one was killed that we know of and our plan is probably to make our way back there and help in the rebuild if that's possible.

KO Lak a small Thai island further up in the bay has had a 5 star resort wiped out with many deaths. Last year we were sailing all around the affected islands with our family and friends - it is heart breaking to see the devastation.

Yesterday we spoke to friends on the radio who had been in Phi Phi Don when the waves hit - they were safe and went ashore to help as they are both doctors and spent 36 hours non-stop treating some of the appalling injuries. I don't know how many of our lives Barry and I have used up but I have said I am really ready to go and live in Spain and grow vegetables!!!

Barry & Lynette

We are living on our 42ft sailing ketch, Kay Sira in a small marina in the NW corner of Langkawi in Malaysia. Our life at the moment consists of working on Kay Sira to prepare her for the coming sailing season here in SE Asia and trying to get all our xmas cards posted in time!!! It is hard to feel Christmassy when it is 30+degrees!!!!!!!!!

We arrived in SE Asia in October last year. We sailed up from Townsville in Queensland Australia. Our voyage took us up the coast of Australia inside the great barrier reef following the route Capt Cook took all those years ago. Nothing much has changed since then and it is still a very deserted coastline with more Crocs (salties) than people, so we did not do much swimming!! We visited Cooktown, Thursday Island, Gove and Darwin, then headed out into the Indian Ocean.

After five days at sea we found ourselves near Ashmore Reef a deserted coral atol. We decided to stop for a look and ended up staying a week we liked it so much. We then sailed to Komodo Island in Indonesia, home of the famous Monitor Lizards up to 6ft long!! Then on to Singapore and up the Malacca straights to Langkawi.

Barry & Lynette