sv evi

We spent a few days buddy boating with SV Sunrise II and SV Nebo. Koen on Nebo is a professional chef — nice to hang out with one of those. We had a potluck dinner on evi (17 people — new record for dinner!), and Koen brought paella and garlic prawns. Yum!

Jade turned 10! She unfortunately got the stomach bug, and was throwing up the night before her party. So we postponed the party until the next day.

Another year, another beach party! Same Happy Birthday sign, and new friends.

On Jade’s actual birthday we had our friends on SV Escape over for dinner. Jade and Vetle went kayaking to Phra Nang cave.

Weston, Justine, Jasper & Mira stayed with us for 14 days, then they spent 5 nights in a hotel in Krabi town. We navigated up the river and stayed a few nights at the Krabi River Marina.

We went rock climbing for a half day, with 2 guides who led the routes and belayed us. It was really fun to climb directly from a beach!

Justine suggested a rating system for Thai beaches: clarity of water, amount of jellyfish, and price & quality of smoothies!

For the next 10 days of Westine’s stay on evi, I asked them to plan, provision for, and cook 4 meals. This turned out to be a great idea! I am learning to share the galley when we have guests. 🙂 We alternated cooking dinners, and this meant I had some time to spend with Jasper & Mira. Also, we just stayed in one place that had a nice beach.

It was cool to see Jaspy progress from being “the lifeguard” who watched from the deck while everyone else swam, to being in the water all day long! He liked to play on the boogie boards, both in the deep water and at the beach. Mira also progressed from crying when it was time to go in the dinghy to saying “I want beach! I want dinghy!”. One funny thing is that both Jasper and Mira started fake puking at the end of the trip. They would say, “Gotta puke!” and then make this retching noise and lean forward. Then they would crack up. They learned that because they had some practice puking earlier in the trip.

For Christmas we had sundowners and a bake-off on the beach on the 24th. Igna came over for stockings and presents on the 25th, then we had a lunch potluck and White Elephant gift exchange with many other (kid) boats. The adult White Elephant game was a hoot with lots of gift stealing.

We dropped Weston, Justine, Jaspy and Mira off in Phuket on December 28th. We had such a lovely time with them! We know it’s a long way to come and tickets are expensive — we really appreciate the effort they took to come see us! With toddlers, no less!

We were with much of the Christmas crew again for New Year’s Eve, at a different beach. We had sundowners and a potluck on the beach. It was a tricky landing with sneaky waves. Tomu was carrying the hot lasagna with oven mitts — he successfully got out of the dinghy, while Jade was standing in front of the bow stabilizing us. I was the last in the dinghy. Just as I was getting out, a wave came and knocked the dinghy into me, causing me to fall and get soaked. Not the most gracious party entry!

Igna convinced Riki and I to go to Patong Beach for New Year’s Eve, so we rallied by drinking iced espresso at 10 pm. Then Riki drove our rented scooter over windy mountain roads to Patong. The traffic was so crazy at the end — basically at a standstill for several blocks. We whispered our wishes for 2026 into our red lanterns and set them free into the sky on the beach amidst thousands of other people. And we danced! The best was at a free cordoned off area of the beach with a DJ and a huge screen. The worst was at the club Illuzions — $60.00 entry fee, and no space to dance, tons of dudes smoking…we didn’t last long. We got back to evi at 4 am! Whew!

Yesterday I went with two friends to provision. The store clerk let me try a mangosteen when I asked what the fruit was. It was so delicious! Mangosteen is called the Queen of Fruit, because of its deep purple color, its crown of green at the top, its luxurious taste, and also because supposedly Queen Victoria of England would give knighthood to those who brought her the best mangosteens. We all loved it. Here are some pics:

and as always, lots of games on sv evi:

Happy New Year!!