We finally decided to unwrap our girl. The tarps have protected her running rigging, among other things, from the sun since we put her up on the hard. It is finally time to take off the covers and see what we got underneath. We chill out at Kata Beach in Phuket and get in some much needed chill time away from boat work. I have been working on my surfing since I got to Phuket. Until we arrived here I had only caught one wave on my own, ever. Now I am catching them regularly. Surfing with Captain King and picking up tips has been quite the experience. He has been surfing for over 40 years, most of which he did in Hawaii. This week his daughter hangs with us, and no surprise, she surfs also. Our time in Thailand is getting short and Matahom will be going in the water soon. We cannot wait! Thanks for watching as always, and we hope you enjoy the vid.

We have been trying to spend as much time on the water as possible to build on our sailing experience. Phuket Thailand has really been a gem of a location to get out there on the water and learn how to sail. The eastern side of the island is very protected from all sides and the area is extremely well charted. Koh Khai Nok is the second island in the chain that normally has 100s power boats and can attract up to a 1000 partying tourist to the two small islands at any given time. But now during Covid times these island are basically baron and a great little 24 mile, out and back, day journey for us. I feel learning by doing ends up teaching you more when you make a mistake than when everything goes fine. We ran into a problem when we attempted to put up the code 0 sail. We have learned so much from our friends that we have meet. We have found sailors to love to share their information and knowledge to us rookies. During the whipping around of the Code 0 in 15 to 20 knots winds I was relaxed and took my time as our friend Hubert had taught us during our semi-regular nightly hang out sessions. His exact words were; slow down, relax and come up with a plan and the do it, safely. His advice was gold. We hope you enjoy this weeks adventure!

Koh Khai Nai and Koh Khai Nok are two islands on the eastern side of Phuket. Both islands are regarded as party islands in non Covid times. The islands are normally surrounded by speeds boats and loaded with tourists hanging out and partying at the make shift bars on the islands. However today, we get to see a different version of Koh Khai Nai as Covid has basically shutdown Phuket tourism. This week we are joined by Howard from Simpson Marine in Phuket. Simpson marine is the local Lagoon dealer and often has other boats for sale that were traded in on a new Lagoon. If you are looking for a boat in SE Asia I would highly recommend getting in touch with them as their after sales service is as good as it gets. As with any boat, Captain King has had things break and other challenges come up after the sale. Simpson Marine has been there the whole time to help him out, even 6 months after Captain King purchased his Seawind from them. Captain King's sailing catamaran is a Seawind 1000 XL2. We were quite impressed with its light wind ability. We were in very light winds for this trip to Koh Khai Nai. We couldn't believe that with the Code 0 up we were going 75%+ of wind speed. Next week we will be hitting up Koh Khai Nok. You will want to be sure to stay tuned for it as we run into some chaos in some good winds and our amateur skills and sailing problem solving get put to the test. Enjoy!

I was watching Sailing Zingaro and James nearly sunk his new boat because he didn't have a bung readily available. James is a very experienced sailer and just like the rest of us, is always learning from mistakes. After watching that I realized how easily it would be to get some bungs and set up a system to attach a few sizes in all the through hole areas. We are glad your boat didnt sink James and we thank you for giving us the idea, through your trials, for our bung set up. Captain King arrived at the boat yard a few weeks before us and has worked his butt off to get his Seawind sailing catamaran into the water. The day for him and Carlos, the boatyard cat, finally arrives for them to set off on their new journey. 48 is another year in the books for me. However this year brought quite a surprise. I had a goal by 55 to get a sailing catamaran and start a new business and charity venture in SE Asia with it. We'll here I am celebrating my 48th birthday on our catamaran. We are looking forward to getting it back to Davao and getting our custom charter business rolling. Hopefully we will be adding even more of them in the future. We hope you enjoy the episode. 1000 subscribers is getting closer and closer by the day. We really appreciate everyone's support and we cannot wait to start giving away 100% of our revenue (it takes 1000 subscribers to monetize a YouTube channel). Peace out ?

Being in a car accident is never a good start to a day. Luckily the motor bike driver that ran into the back of us only had scratches and bruises. Our new friend that ran into us was on his way back from getting his first Covid vaccine shot. All in all everything ended up good and I hope his trip to get his second vaccine shot was way less eventful than his first. I mentioned in other videos how doing one boat repair seems to lead down a rabbit hole of other repairs. Our electronics upgrade started with Matahom not being able to display wind speed. Our original ST60 Raymarine Tri Data had three dashes for everything. When I tried to remove it, the front panel cracked from years of sun and salt. So we decided to upgrade to the newer unit. In addition we had an open space in our cockpit dash so we went with two of them instead of trying to figure out some other way to fill in the hole from some distance past removed instrument. Which then lead to our auto pilot panel looking outdated and not matching. So yeah, we replaced that as well even though it worked fine. All of that goes in and guess what, still no wind speed. Check all the wiring one more time before going up the mast to replace the anemometer (wind speed indicator). All checked out so up the mast we go. But 1/2 up the mast we decide a radar should go on. And we also need AIS as it is required in many countries in SE Asia. So yeah there you have it, wind speed display issues leads to new radar, instruments and AIS. If anyone is looking for a company in Phuket that does awesome work and doesn't gouge on pricing, like most places here, let me know and I will hook you up with Monrak's information. He will be doing our solar and new charging / inverter install as well. Finally Captain Yen and the 3.5 meter tide here at G and T don't get along well. We got his very heavy dingy in the water a few times prior but this time the tide dumped it as high up the beach as possible. Captain King lends a hand and shows us that pure force doesn't win out over resourcefulness. We hope you enjoy the video. We really thank you guys for the recent growth of subscribers. We are very excited to get to 1000 subs so we can monetize monetize channel and start doing the charity work we are anxious to get started on.

E16: It's been a hot and rainy week in Phuket Thailand this week. Honestly we have been slacking on boatwork this week. We really need to crank out some work in the next 30 days. We talk more about some of our plans on ideas on how to maximize our charity work with our 100% of YouTube revenues pledge. We have some good ideas but honestly hearing from you guys would give us even more ideas. I love watching boats being moved around in the boat yard. They moved around the biggest they can handle here. A 17m aluminum catamaran. Our Matahom looked pretty big in the boatyard until the big black cat shows up. I hope you enjoy watching them move this giant around. Thanks for watching. We hope you enjoy the episode.

How do you get your sailboat ready for a day trip? We, and a group of friends, take off on a quick day trip to Koh Yao Yai in Phuket Thailand. We prepare the boat prior to leaving, check everything and raise the anchor to set off for the day. Good group of people for this weeks adventure. We are joined by Dean and Macus from Seychelles. Both just did an Indian Ocean crossing on a Bali 4.3 and then had to quarantine in Phuket for 14 days. Dean is a delivery captain with over 2 decades of sailing experience. It was a pleasure to have him aboard to teach us and to pick his brain. Macus was his engineer on the delivery crossing. It was his first major delivery and his first delivery was across the Indian Ocean! Kyle is from South Africa and is learning just like we are. He got stuck in Phuket during Covid and was originally here for marine training in the yachting industry. Finally Yen joins us, rather we join him on his newly purchased Fountaine Pajot Bahia 46. Yen, while also a noobie to sailing, has had the opportunity to get his boat out on the water and gain some experience sailing since purchasing it. Koh Yao Yai are 3 rock formations just off the island between the world famous Phi Phi islands and Phuket. While one formation is only a few meters tall, the other two go straight up out of the water and have a lot of green on them to create a stunning setting. Yen gets some stunning aerial views with the drone as I struggled to keep reception with mine and have problems landing it back on the boat for the first time. BTW, if you catch a drone, turn it upside down, it will automatically turn itself off....thanks Yen! Probably the single best thing about entering our sailing life has been all the new people we have meet. It is also very nice to have such a huge diversity of cultures. Learning the world is not only about going places and seeing them for yourself, but also talking to the people that are from there. As always, thank you for taking 20 minutes out of your day to watch.

We are giving away 100% of our YouTube revenues to benefit children and our marine environment and ecology. As we travel around we realize just how blessed we are and just how many children go without even basic needs. In addition as divers and now sailors we see first hand just how bad the marine pollution problem has become. We have many ideas on how we plan on implimenting this goal, but would love to hear from you guys on ideas. Here are some of our brainstorming ideas: Children - health, food, clothing, homelessness and education. Marine / environmental - awareness, education and clean up. For the marine ecology we plan on bring awareness to marine sanctuaries and directly donate as well. We firmly believe that without education and waste management measures, that all the clean up efforts are a quick fix and maybe even a negative yield situation long term. We see it first hand. Best part is, for our viewers, we just need your assistance with likes, views, subscribing and most importantly shares on other social media platforms or with just people in general. That's our big announcement and long term goal with our YouTube channel. In addition in this episode we continue the LiFePo4 battery build and meet Carlos the boatyard cat. Thanks for watching and we truly hope you follow and enjoy our journeys

We begin our Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePo4) battery build for our boat. We got in our Lithium cells from China and begin to unpack and check the voltages on them. We then out them in parallel, for now, to get them to equalize. Stay tuned for further progress on our new off grid solar and Lithium battery upgrade system as we build it. One of the best things about the boat yard is meeting new friends that are also doing boat work and work together to get stuff done in a foreign country. We hang out with two new friends and hit up a beach side restaurant in Phuket Thailand that is really good food and super affordable. Links from video mentions to follow

E12: We finally get settled in, in Phuket Thailand and put together our boat tour. In addition to being super busy once we got in Phuket, Steffie also had to learn Adobe Premier Pro. She learned a ton just in a week, while we were running around and also doing boat work. We have been getting a lot of content while we have been here, so there will be several videos going up over the next month. We have been not only working on Matahom, but also spending time exploring Phuket and hitting up the beaches. Covid has made the beaches basically empty here in Phuket. Enjoy the video. Lots of boat work and Phuket day trips soon to come in our future episodes.

E11: We are finally done with our ASQ Quarantine at Best Bella Pattaya Thailand, we are now off to Phuket Thailand to finally get to our Leopard 44 sailing catamaran. We spend a few hours in Pattaya while waiting for our van to arrive to give us a ride to Bangkok airport. We visit the Terminal 21 mall in Pattaya as well as Pattaya Beach. Our arrival into Phuket was at 10pm at night. On the domestic routes, currently nothing is different than pre covid travel for departures. Once you arrive in Phuket they do a quick temperature scan and you sign a log book and includes your passport number. It is very quick and painless. When we finally arrive at G & T Boatyard in Phuket, we unloaded everything and took it up to our bungalow and quickly unpacked the flash lights and headed out to see Matahom for the first time. Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw, as we have never seen a large sailing catamaran before up close.

E10: After a stressful 3 days in Manila, we finally arrive in Thailand and are now only 15 days away from getting to our sailing catamaran, Matahom. Our ASQ experience was actually kind of a relaxing break from life. You cannot really do much in quarantine so just relaxing, chilling out and catching up on some work and workouts is a welcome escape from it all. Thailand has done an amazing job with Covid and with their ASQ program to allow foreign visitors into their country. They are amongst the leading nations dealing with the pandemic and have one of the lowest mortality rates in the world. We feel very fortunate to be able to stay in Thailand and to get to our boat finally. Thanks for watching and we hope you enjoy following our journey!

E9: One last stop before we can catch our plane to Thailand. To qualify for entry into Thailand under the ASQ program we need to get a PCR Covid test 72 hours, maximum, prior to flight. In addition we need to get a Fit to Fly form filed out by a doctor after the PCR test. We decided to go to Manila 4 days prior to flight so we could take care of everything there and not have to worry about flying to Manila the day before our Thailand flight. We also meet up with a friend we have known for 3 years, but we have actually never meet in person. Steffie gets to experience Buffalo Wild Wings for the first time ever. Amazing wings, ranch and good onion rings are all new encounters for her.

E8: We have been patiently waiting, well we acted patient, for our Amazon order to finally completely arrive. We recorded two different sessions about 3 weeks apart as the final 10 boxes of our order got stuck in customs for 3 weeks. The first two boxes came in, no problem, 5 days after our Amazon order. Amazon is amazing, ship literally to the other side of the world in 5 days. In addition to us opening up our boxes and going through the items, we do a quick review and introduction to the Samsung Tab Active Pro 2 tablet. We feel like the Tab Active is a great tablet for use on a boat. It is waterproof to 5 feet, dustproof and shock resistant. A rugged tablet for a rugged environment aboard a boat. We plan on using our Samsung Tab Actives for navigation using Navionics and Isailor. In conjunction with OpenCPN on our laptops, we feel like we have good redundancy and a wealth of information between the 3 programs. In addition, we will be able to use our IridiumGo and Predictwind for offshore weather information. Between the weather information and the navigation, we feel our Tab Actives will get a lot of use for route planning. Thanks for watching and please feel to leave a comment about anything below. We answer every comment!

E7: Dusit Thani Lubi Plantation is one of Davao City's newest resorts and 1 of only 2, 5 star accommodations that I am aware of. It is a private island at the very north east portion of the Davao Gulf. Lubi Plantation is the entirety of the island. It takes around 30 minutes to tour the entire island by golf cart. Incidentally the tour is included for free with your stay. The far side of the island is a turtle sanctuary and has a decent sized freshwater pond. We cannot speak highly enough about the villas. You can get one with or without a private pool. As you will see in the video ours had the private pool. All the Villas with the private pool get a good view of the sunset off to their right. If you get Villa 1002, the one we had, it is on the corner and also gets a good view of the sunrise. All the villas without the private pool face east, towards the sunrise. The villas are truly the star of the show at Lubi Plantation. While our review is a little mixed, and maybe a little too critical, we did enjoy our time there. Every person that works there was on top of their game always. The staff is awesome! Every member of their team always went out of their way for us. They really helped make our first wedding anniversary a memorable one. https://www.carrentaldavao.com

Episode 6: 24 hours in Mati City on Dahican Beach. We stayed the evening at Sheepy's resort and highly recommend it. Chill place that super relaxed and owned by a super laid back Australian Surfer. Dave has done a great job of creating a beautiful little resort and keeps adding to it. The beer is cold and the view and pool are amazing. We also visit Dahican Surf Resort on one top rated beaches in The Philippines. Dahican Beach is not a very traveled spot relative to the rest of the beaches and vacation spots in The Philippines. Most of the visitors are from Davao City. The rest of the country, including its two other very large cities really don't even know about Dahican Beach. This will change in the future as they are expanding the current airport which will allow larger planes to come in from Cebu and Manila. For the local surfers this is generally viewed as bad thing but it will for sure increase the economy, jobs and property values. Get to Mati while it is still relatively unknown. We go there often from Davao City and if you need any advice about Mati City and Dahican Beach, please leave us a comment and we will be sure to answer. https://www.carrentaldavao.com

Episode 5: Two of our friends ask us 10 personal questions to get to know us better. Have more questions for us? Please ask whatever you would like to know about us in the comments.

66 days to go before we can get to our sailing catamaran that is currently stuck in Phuket Thailand. While we wait, Steffie and her childhood friends take a day trip to Villa De Mercedes. Jason gets his exit visa from the Philippines and finishes up all the Thailand paperwork for the Special Tourist Visa then sends it off to the Royal Thai Embassy in Manila. Villa De Mercedes is a beautiful day get away for only 250 php ($5) on weekdays and 300 php ($6) on weekends. Open 9 to 5 daily. Its best to hit them up on FB messenger and make a reservation for the day. Its quick and easy. They ask for your names, address, contact numbers, age and date/time of arrival. Villa De Mercedes sits on the side of a mountain and has amazing overlook views from its negative edge pool. Please like, subscribe and turn on post notifications to help support our channel. "Typical - Birdy" is free to use on YouTube with credits. Music promoted by BreakingCopyright: https://youtu.be/sXY7K96WTtE The video may include some form of paid promotion or sponsorship. Some links in description are affiliate links. Information is subject to change/update at anytime. Please do your own due diligence as I am not responsible for any past, future or current information in this video. FTC Disclosure Statement: Some links on this YouTube channel may be affiliate links. We may get paid if you buy something or take an action after clicking one of these. https://www.carrentaldavao.com

This video ended up being more of a podcast. Sorry for the weird pulsing screen recordings. I am simply using a Note 20 Ultra to record the screen while I talk. I will have to find a good screen recorder that supports webcam picture in picture and microphone. We are working on getting back to our sailing catamaran, Matahom. She is currently stuck in Phuket Thailand, while my wife and I are living in the Philippines. This video is everything we have learned about how to travel to Thailand during Covid. Thailand opened back up in mid October with the STV program and has since opened up more with the VOA (visa on arrival) program. A recent outbreak may change all that though.....watch for details. 0:46 - Thailand COE Website Overview 1:43 - VOA (Visa on Arrival) and STV (Special Tourist Visa) discussion 4:52 - Facebook Group FAQs and answers we found. 5:23 - Fit to Fly COE requirement. How to get one. 7:08 - New Covid Outbreak in Thailand 8:28 - Hotel / Airline / Insurance refunds and reschedules. 9:45 - Facebook ASQ Groups 11:07 - Pkuket Travel and Inter Province Travel. Double quarantine possibilities. 12:57 - App / Websites you must register to and/or download and use. 14:17 - How to navigate Thailand visa forms. VOA and STV discussed again. 22:32 - Some ASQ hotel features to consider before booking room. 26:50 - Some things you may not have thought of to bring. Please add your ideas in comments! 28:38 - The things you need to board the plane 30:15 - ATMs, exchanging money and other money related items. 32:42 - Room cleaning considerations 33:27 - No UK travel ban is good news for all travelers worried about border closing again 34:26 - I got the vaccine, do I need to quarantine? 35:18 - Visa/COE requirement of inbound and outbound ticket discussion and my opinion 36:45 - Agoda ASQ Hotel dedicated page 38:26 - Married vs not married sharing room legalities, requirements and discussion 39:42 - Final thoughts and the best resource I have found for all Thailand news and travel discussion Links / Websites discussed TransferWise https://transferwise.prf.hn/l/6loQGpx Dr Donna Fit to Fly: https://medconsultappointment.simplybook.me/v2/#book/service/29/count/1/ Thailand online COE site. Apply directly online for your COE: https://coethailand.mfa.go.th/regis/step?language=en Agoda dedicated Thailand ASQ hotel page: https://www.agoda.com/quarantineTH Current (1/9/21) Phuket travel requirements: https://thethaiger.com/coronavirus/phuket-governor-announces-new-restrictions-for-travel-to-phuket-effective-now Super Rich Thailand money exchange site: https://superrichthailand.com/#!/en Royal Thai Embassy Manila (google search for your local Thai Embassy. Might look the same) https://www.thaiembassymnl.ph/index.php/en/consular-services Thailand visa application form: https://www.thaiembassymnl.ph/images/stories/2018/Announcement/SMARTapplicationform.pdf Thai Embassy current (1/10/21) travel requirements - VOA and STV: https://thaiembassymnl.ph/images/stories/2021/CONSULAR/Thaivisarequirements2021.pdf What to bring with you to board the plane: -Passport -COE -Fit to Fly -Covid Test -Insurance -ASQ Confirmation Hotel Booking -Flight ticket confirmation (along with return flight info) -T8 Form The video may include some form of paid promotion or sponsorship. Some links in description are affiliate links. Information is subject to change/update at anytime. Please do your own due diligence as I am not responsible for any past, future or current information in this video. FTC Disclosure Statement: Some links on this YouTube channel may be affiliate links. We may get paid if you buy something or take an action after clicking one of these.

Go easy on me. This is my first vlog ever! I have already done the second part of this and am working on the edits. This one kind of messy for the display part but the information is still sound and good. We have been wanting to get back into Thailand for over 9 months now to get to our sailing catamaran in Phuket. Thailand started opening its borders to tourism in October 2020 with the Special Tourist Visa (STV) program. This is our beginning adventure of going through that program and the Alternative State Quarantine (ASQ) Hotel program. Please ask any questions you have about traveling to Thailand now. If I don't know the answer I will do my best to find a resource for you. Links I referenced in video: Transferwise: https://transferwise.prf.hn/l/Kzy5yQx New Thailand Visa/COE site: https://coethailand.mfa.go.th/regis/step?language=en Ongoing references I have found. I will continually update this list, so check back often. Check out Richard Barrow in Thailand on Twitter and Facebook for up to date Thailand news from an Expat. This probably the single best resource for up to date Thailand news.