Blog 7. Sat 7 March 2020. Ko Lanta Yai. 07.29.65N 099.04.24E

Alcedo
David Batten
Sat 7 Mar 2020 09:54
We hit the Emerald Cave at about 09.30, just as a load of Asians were preparing to embark on a swim through to the hong. Luckily they took a lot of organising, as they all wore life jackets, the sort that make getting on and off a boat difficult and they had to be organised into a sort of daisy chain. This meant being made to form a long line, hanging onto each other and being towed through the cave by a guide. We swam in quick sharpish and managed to beat the rush, enjoying the hong for a while with only 2 other people who had canoed in. Being low water, canoeing in was quite possible although it does say in the guide it should be swimmers only

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The long tails with the Asian crowd by the entrance to the cave

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Inside the hong...

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...and looking at the tunnel from the hong, with the guide pulling his tourists into the entrance of the hong. There was a huge amount of chatter and excitement when they emerged, so it was obviously quite a bold thing for them to have done

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Back to the boat and then the main beach at Ko Muk, where we discovered trash worthy of anything we saw in Indonesia...

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...and what we presume is rubble left by the Tsunami. It would appear that there has been no rebuilding on the beach here since the Tsunami, but there are bungalows for rent and restaurants lining the dirt road to the village, well inland of the beach.

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Dry season, so this sign seemed a little unnecessary. We assumed this is the village reservoir!

From Ko Muk to Paradise Beach the following day. Our favourite spot so far, but the weather was particularly calm during our stay there

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Paradise beach from the mooring buoy, quiet, beautiful, no speed boats and the best snorkelling to date

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Alcedo anchored off Paradise Beach, Skipper just visible

Today, we left Paradise for a lunchtime stop at the southern bay on Ko Ngai, described as a good snorkelling and lunch time stop and then on to Ko Lanta for the night, winds permitting. Ko Ngai proved to be just a little too exciting to stay for long. With the echo sounder being unreliable and there being unspecified rocks on all the charts, we were reluctant to anchor and the buoy we picked up was just off the wall of the reef lining the bay. The wind as is usual in such situations, became a little too brisk and onshore for comfort, swinging Alcedo towards the reef and the clearly visible bombies. Plus the snorkelling was not as good as Paradise and not worth the angst being generated by the conditions. No time for photographs, Skipper’s wife insisted on a move before lunch and as the wind picked up and was taking us towards Phi at 7 knots, we thought “go with it”. Well, 15 minutes later, it was down to 6 knots from the South West and Phi Phi was still 30 miles away, so we dropped anchor off the middle bay at Ko Lanta Yai. It is calm and sunny at 17.00hrs as the blog is being written, but the wind is sure to get up before dark, hopefully not much more than Windy or WeatherTrack are predicting. We shall see and the plan is to make an early start for a lunch time stop at Ko Ha Lai.

Alcedo

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