The River Rover's crew

Gordon and Margot , dedicated yachties are the founders of the company and the core of the team that includes Thai captains and hostesses. Six years ago they gave up their businesses in Cape Town and sailed their 42-ft sloop to Madagascar, the Maldives, the Seychelles and Chagos. They arrived in Phuket three years ago and have lived here ever since.

Margot and Gordon

Gordon Williams, originally from Bournmouth, UK, and Margot Brache, from South Africa, met 20 years ago in Cape Town. After many years of successful dinghy racing, competing in and winning many national and international championships, they sold their respective businesses six years ago and bought a 42-ft fiberglass sloop Aries, on which they made a 3-year voyage to Phuket.

This is part of their story.

Margot We sailed out of Hout Bay, Cape Town and up the east coast of South Africa. Finally, we left South Africa from Durban. Our first port of call was Inhaca Island, Mozambique. We went to the Island to take shelter from a storm but it was so beautiful and the people were so lovely that we stayed for a month. From there, we went to South Madagascar, a place called Toliara, where we also stayed for a month.
Gordon The night before we left we were attacked by pirates. At two in the morning there was a bump on the side of the boat. I knew it was a pirogue, a dugout canoe. There were people running all over the deck and one of the guys jumped down into the cockpit with a machete. He pierced the mosquito net to the companionway and started thrashing about with his knife to keep us at bay. I tried to blind him with a big flashlight and he promptly slashed it in half and took a chunk out of my hand. Rocks and bottles were thrown into the saloon to keep us down. Margot got hit with a rock. So I grabbed the fire extinguisher, pulled the pin and fired it into his face. He got scared of that and ran along the deck as I chased him with the fire extinguisher - he didn't realise it was now empty. He threw the machete at me. It missed. With that, they all dived over the side.
Margot Next morning at first light we were gone, the boat still covered in powder from the fire extinguisher. We sailed up to Nosé Bé in northern Madagascar. We cruised all the islands up there - absolutely beautiful, the most magnificent coral formations we have ever seen. Apart from the attack, people were very friendly.
Gordon The next stop was Mayotte, this is an island of The Comoros that is French territory. Then to Dar-es-Salaam, on to Zanzibar and up to Pemba. We sailed to Kalifi, Kenya where we spent six months. From Kalifi we journeyed to the Seychelles. Here we stayed with friends for a month - it was just too expensive to stay any longer. We then sailed over to Chagos, which is completely uninhabited. Only yachties go there, as ships draw too much water. There are no airports or landing strips so that there are no aircraft in the area. We spent six months there living off crabs, coconuts, fish, lobsters and whatever we could get our hands on.
Margot Chagos is wonderful. Between Madagascar and Chagos I can't decide which is my favourite. We had a good social life on Chagos, too. There were fifty boats at the same atoll. Sometimes teenagers from some of the boats would go out fishing and the parents would get on the radio, "Let's have a barbecue on the beach". Every day was very social - we even did our laundry together.
Gordon From Chagos we went to the Maldives. Then from the Maldives we sailed to Phuket. We arrived in October of 1999. Just in time for the new millennium.
Margot Since then, we've just been enjoying Phuket and enjoying Thailand.
Gordon We have started River Rovers. I came up with the idea of getting to areas of Phang Nga Bay where other yachts are not able to go because of the depth of the water. So we had a 29-ft houseboat designed, with a flat bottom that can float in one foot of water and that will sleep six people or more in comfort. We are able to go up the rivers and through the mangrove forests. Some of our marketing is aimed towards bird watching and nature lovers. Each cruise has two flat-bottomed canoes that the passengers can use to explore the smaller klongs and caves, using the houseboat as their base camp.
Margot We are very excited about the project and we do want to stay here longer since we love Thailand so much.