S̄wạs̄dī khrxbkhrạw læa pheụ̄̀xn
Hello family & friends (in Thai),
Here we are starting our 7th day aboard our sea chariot, up at 5:30 AM, catching the dawn unfolding. It had not rained during the night like Ray had thought, having raced back to the boat from dinner to secure all hatches (better safe than sorry). Underway by 7:15 AM for a 3 hour run to Koh Dam Khwan (Chicken Island), dining on fried eggs, toast and granola, followed by kicking back on the bow trampoline. Anchoring off Chicken Island, we took the dinghy up one side of the channel to start our snorkeling with Zach, crossing over to one of the smaller islands via a long sandbar, finding a 10 meter “tunnel”, where we swam through the rock, proceeded to circumnavigate the island, and eventually arrived at a beach awash with Muslim women wearing their burkas. Our trek had us next walking on the sandbar which was now more prominent due to the tide’s ebbing, to an even smaller island. We then snorkeled for 2 hours back to our catamaran, happening upon a large jellyfish shielding a great number of 2” long fish under its belly and within its tentacles. We also experienced colorful coral and more schools of fish (unfortunately, we had no underwater camera to capture photos). Back on board early afternoon we were served another wonderful Thai meal from Pern along with fresh, juicy mangos.
As the afternoon progressed the sandbar we had used earlier in the morning started disappearing as the tide rose rapidly, resulting in front row seats from our boat to a group of 15 tourists being stranded and waving for help. We watched as a single dinghy sped from the 82 foot catamaran to rescue their French guests. It was like watching a Keystone Kops movie, the 15 all stuffing themselves into a telephone booth (in this case, a too small dinghy). As they attempted to take off, the boat bottomed out which caused them to revise their “plan”, finally loading only 11, with the dinghy returning for the last 4. We all had a good laugh, especially KH (being German) and Ray (being British), finding this to be a hilarious and jolly good folly, since there are histories between these 3 nations!
Entering a beautiful dusk, after an afternoon anchored offshore of Chicken Island, listening to hanging bats screeching in the trees populating Chicken Island, we watched thousands of fruit bats (I stopped counting at 300), soaring and swarming in waves, forming images we named, on their way to find food. They were out of sight after 20 minutes. All this and a full moon! We then proceeded to consume Pern’s wonderful banana Daiquiris on the aft section of our boat before turning in early for our 5:30 AM wake up, which dovetailed with the screeching of the overnight marauding fruit bats returning to Chicken Island. There must have been bananas left over from the drinks the night before since our breakfast consisted of banana pancakes (Zack degraded his by smearing them with peanut butter). We sailed to the mainland and Ao Nang beach, then to Krabi Town in the Muang District, taking an (air-conditioned!) mini-van 30 minutes northeast to Tiger Cave Temple (Wat Tham Suea).
Once at the temple, we climbed the 1237 steps to its pinnacle at 309 meters (1,000 feet+), fending off rocks being thrown by Macaque monkeys at us from above in our 1st 100 steps, stubbing our toes in the fray! It was a grueling 50 minutes to reach the apex, sweating profusely from the high humidity but well worth the effort when we took in the panoramic view of cultivated fields, forestation and the 35 foot golden statue of Buddha right next to us. Luckily there was a water station atop the wat (can’t imagine why), along with a donation station. There was quite a collection of international tourists, from, among other places, Japan, China, and Sweden. On the descent, which took half the time as the ascent, there was a race between the Heathens and the Christians of our vessel to see who would reach the ground first. The Heathens won!
While waiting for our mini-van, we sat, eating bananas to strengthen our legs made weak from the hot, humid, ascents/descents, gulping water to re-hydrate. Once some Macaque monkeys caught the scent of our bananas, they began the harassment, one of them jumping on one of us, grabbing a banana, running off, sitting and savoring it nearby. We made it back to the boat, relaxing and reading during the 3.5 hours motoring to Ko Roi, enthralled by the islands, karsts, monoliths in all their primeval splendor. We ended up swimming over to a local hong, donning our Tevas to walk on the coral at low tide and into “The Land that Time Forgot”, with mangrove trees and their giant roots, high walls oozing with limestone, eagles calling out from the rim of the hong. Upon returning to our vessel, we found a party going on with the cast of characters from our sister ship, StressBreaker, with laughter and Ipod-generated music spilling over all of us.
Soup was our breakfast the next morning, our 9th day at sea, before motoring to 2 Ko Phanak hongs at optimum tide levels. We took the dinghy over to the ‘walking’ hong, the entrance being 150 meters long, opening into a lagoon with major mangroves, with us wading around in 2 foot high waters. We barely got out in time, as the water was up to our chests upon exiting, meeting others coming into the lagoon on inflated rubber boats which were being pulled by their guides and having to lay down in their crafts due to the short clearance between their heads and the longest stalactites. At the entrance to the hong, half a dozen boats loomed, unloading dozens of tourists from Phuket, being only a day trip from there. The tourists were being loaded onto the inflatables waiting for their turn to enter the hong. Our Captain had gotten us in and out at the right time. It was a bit different when, after lunch, we took to the 2nd hong, where it was we who were laying down in our kayaks, oars laid to our sides, guiding ourselves through with our hands pulling on the stalactites and the adjacent walls. We came out into another beautiful lagoon, with a Macaque and its 2 foot long tail, at the base of the cliff to our left, eating (what else) a banana! Continuing to our right, we traversed into a second lagoon. The only description for me is that it was magical! Apparently we have been ahead of the hordes the whole day, as they were crashing our party as we were leaving, avoiding their destruction of our pristine visit. The passageway was too narrow for 2-way traffic, thus we had to wait a while, and, guessing when the last kayak had come in, we went forth, not knowing who would ‘give’ if we came upon more entering! A little excitement upon exiting was when Maggie and I capsized our kayak at the cave entrance, with more traffic coming at us. We pushed our upside-down kayak out and to the right, sitting on rocks outside the opening, righting our kayak and paddling back to the Mother ship, believing that the guides for the incoming kayaks were thinking “this wouldn’t have happened to that couple if they had a GUIDE with them”.
Of course, there had to be one more faux pas before boarding our ship…approaching the aft mooring area for our kayaks, one had broken loose so I jumped into the sea to capture it and swim back. However, the current was extremely swift and they had to throw me a life ring and haul me back…so much for a heroic effort. This life ring served later as a spot for cooling off from the heat and humidity, taking turns sitting in it. We moored on the other side of the island for the night…another great sunset and exodus of this island’s bat colony at dusk. We guesstimated the size to be almost twice our previous experience, more like 5,000! One of us asked Captain Ray where the drop off spots are for emptying the waste matter from our bathrooms. He burst out in a roar of laughter. When that subsided, he winked at us, referring to us as “the wooly-headed public”, with our mouths open, realizing he was telling us that there was no tank, ergo, the sea was the repository for our human waste. He went on a rant about urban dwellers, pushing levers and seeing their waste disappear, never thinking about what steps are next. We all had a good laugh at this piece of education and chastisement.
Our final full day with Diane and Ray started with pulling up anchor around 9 AM and heading to Ko Rang Yai for our final moorage location. A 5 knot current kept us from swimming to shore, thus using the dinghy, to spend time at this “day” resort for visitors coming from Phuket. KH and I played Bocce ball on a rough sandy court following ‘good bye’ Mai Tais (pretty watered down), KH winning both games. Returning to our ship for pre-functioning, then having our last meal of the trip onshore, with all 9 of us, with peacocks strutting around, KH being bitten by a crab, a local mutt being fed fish heads from our table, light breezes, and a memorable evening under the full moon.
The following day would find us at the Royal Phuket Basin, mooring the Nyaminyami and spending the next 2 nights on land, at the Kata Delight Villas, getting rid of our ‘sea’ legs and saying our good byes. We all agreed that we had a jolly good time and thanked Pam profusely for asking us to join them to celebrate KH’s birthday… my first international trip post-reFirement!!!
Thanks for joining us on this adventure,
Stan & Maggie