Monday 12 May 2008

4 Island Tour





Stephen's notes:
Took a day trip to visit 4 islands and go snorkelling. The boat was hugely overcrowded, the captain smoked joints one after the other; and there weren't enough life jackets. On the way back we had to hang on for our lives in very stormy seas as we circumnavigated the island and went the long way back. Also the engine kept stopping and our direction kept changing. We thought we would have to swim for it..Also to get delivered back to the hotel they had 8 of us in the back of a pick up sitting on the edge without hand rails or seat backs. Had to hang on to the person opposite and lean into the corners. Fortunately we didn't have to stop suddenly. Note - road accident are the number 1 cause of death and injury in Thailand. Hmm....


Becky's additional comments:

I thoroughly enjoyed the beginning of the 4 island tour because I left the overcrowded seating area inside and went up to the top deck while we cruised out to the first island. Hardly anyone was sitting up there and it was actually bright in the morning. The sunshine glistened on the water as we cruised out through the mangrove lined harbour entrance on the east side of the island. We even managed to spot a few monkeys in the mangrove trees. I couldn't resist the urge to sing Christopher Cross ('Sailing' - Heather will remember that I used to play it before bed every night in college...). I snapped photos of the karst islands in the distance and enjoyed the feeling of solitude on the top deck. When we arrived at the first snorkelling site all feeling of solitude came to an end as the 50 people on board our boat came out from underneath to try to grab the snorkelling gear. I managed to get one for Stephen and me so we could get into the water before the hoards descended. We headed off away from the others against the current (so we could just drift back to the boat when we were finished). We found a piece of coral surrounded by colorful reef fish. We just hovered over the top of it. Stephen and I spotted a small, black octopus swimming along the bottom and we followed a tiny, speckled shark as it swam away from the other fish. The conditions were very good for snorkelling when you got away from the other tourists splashing and kicking about, scaring away all of the fish.