09 45.482 N  098 24.244 E

Back to our home away from home. We will have a few more days here with Kilkea and they will disappear on the 11th or 12th  to head back south to Nai Yang Beach at the airport to meet up with friends of their's who are flying in for a 10 day visit on way to Australia. That will leave us on our own as most of the others whom we have met over the past years have moved on.

Surprise!....Kilkea sails out of our view…and in come 3 boats whom we know: Inspiration Lady (Gary and Jackie from Ontario/Canada) and Sostice (Bill from California who was on the hard at Rebak at same time as Sea Mist) and S/V Hokale'a (Jake and Jackie also from California…moored across from us over Christmas/New Years at Rebak)…..a bit like old home week!  The pleasantries of this cruising life….the social side is the big plus.  Drinks together on shore at the Hippy Bar….along with a new to us cruising couple (Roger and Sheri, S/V Equinimity)….who have already started to explore the idea with us of heading to the Mediterranean via the Red Sea in 2015/2016…if we can find a way to bypass Captain Phillips Somalia Pirates activity.

So the R7R/Thai Vacation continues…will probably continue to hang out here until about Monday the 17th when we will need to start our trek towards Yacht Haven on the N/E of Phuket Island.

The fishing boats; here is one approach to draining the ocean of all its fish…..a photo capture >>>

Bat Man Boats

Right at the opening of Buffalo Bay the boats were fishing so we could really see their nets and they do look like bats.

John decided to run out in the dinghy to watch the operation up close. In the end they landed about 1000-1200 pounds of fish…don’t really know what species. They looked like baby yellow fin tuna.

When they were all done with their nets flaked on the boats decks and the fish in the hold, they insisted on John coming up beside them so they could give him some fish. He declined….but they insisted…insisted….and so he went over. He told them just 3 fish…using his fingers for communicating as no English of course….he almost had 300 fish dumped in the dinghy…but with many proclamations of “NO!”   “NO!”….one of the crew told the ones dumping the fish in the dinghy to stop….and John ended up with only about 50 fish on the floor of the dinghy.  Back at the anchorage, it was appropriate to go to each of the sailing boats and try to get them to take as many as they would….all worked out…and it was down to only half a dozen for John to clean back on Sea Mist.

The boat had a crew of about 25 young men….takes a lot of manual labour to flake the nets even though they have big mechanical/hydraulic arms with huge pulleys/blocks to haul in the nets.

Another memorable adventure!