Sailing Day 5 - Jan 1 - Ko Hong/ Ko Yao Noi

Fifth day - We left Krabi with everyone feeling well, and headed to Ko Hong. It was a national park with a nature trail, snack bar, photos of the tsunami, and boats that had been pushed into the forest during the tsunami that they left there as evidence of the disaster. The swimming area was swarming with tourists and the diving was murky and we all got stung by jellyfish. We braved a wall of boats to take our kayaks out and around the island. The boat met us on the other side while we enjoyed spectacular views of cliffs, caves, and jelly fish!

 

The last bit we battles the current so they came and gave Brandy and Gillian a tow with their dingy! Ahh relief!  Our kayak trip ended with us kayaking into a lagoon that took our breath away. There was a sand bar that Charles laid down on for a much deserved rest after all of the kayaking. Chip took a picture but it didn't do it justice. There were tons of starfish, so we named it starfish lagoon.  Oh yeah, on the way around the island we stopped at a small deserted beach we called deep sand beach because the sand was so deep...

 

After the lagoon stop we had seafood soup, fried beef with sesame seeds, and rice and chicken curry. After lunch we headed for the north side of ko Yao Noi where we are anchoring for the night. It's very peaceful as we are the only ones here. So far everyone feels well. Fingers crossed on everyone staying healthy. Right now Chip and the kids are jumping off the front of the boat, floating between the catamaran and jumping... John fished with Captain Nong before and after dinner.  John caught one fish and Nong caught one.   After dinner Nong caught some weird worm thing that looked like a greyish purple sea cucumber. In the dark if you touched it, the worm glowed green where you touched. Gillian, John and Brandy kept touching it and touching it. It was so cool! Gillian wants me to add that it's pee glows too.

 

We also educated the kids on glowing pee.  Gillian and John were in awe as John's pee glowed in the dark from the phosphorous. 

 

For Chip, this was a night that he was after.  Anchoring away alone and enjoying some quality family time on the boat.

 

 

 

The first place we went was packed with tourists.. all arriving by Tuk Tuk..

 

 

It was a beautiful cove, but too many people for us.

 

 

We left the crowds and found Deep Sand Beach...

 

When we don't see Monkey's... Brandy turns into one!

 

 

We continued to Kayak around the island until we found the lagoon.

 

 

The lagoon was a small break between the rocks. 

Once we cleared, it opened into this.  Our camera died, but at least we go a couple of shots.

John learned to fish Thai style..

 

As usual, he nails one. 

This was the Kings beach house.  It's good to be king.

 

 

 

Sailing Day 3 - Dec 30 - Ko Pharya Nak & Bamboo Island

On the third day we went to Ko Pharya Nak where they filmed the movie the Beach. It was very beautiful. The first cove we visited had some tourists, but it didn't keep us from enjoying the incredible scenery. Gillian, Charles, and Chip snorkeled and John wasn't feeling well so he and I decided to go kayaking. I immediately flipped us both into the water but John was a good sport and climbed right back on. We met up with the others and ventured to the beach where we hung out for a while. We even saw a toilet plumbed right into the ground.  Weird.  Next we visited monkey beach where the kids fed some monkeys - mom might never get over that one! Scary!!! We ended the day on Bamboo Island where there were loads of tourists. We walked away from them and had a nice time shelling. Charles found a large spikey one that was really beautiful. We headed back to the boat and John started  to feel really sick. He spiked a fever and we took him to the "hospital" where they gave him Tylenol and nausea medicine. He threw up most of the night but felt better in the morning.  Poor little guy. As soon as he felt better he jumped up and asked to go fishing... What a guy!

This was the first cove we went into.

Chip saw a couple of these starfish while he was snorkeling.  It was bright purple and apparently poisonous.

This was where they filmed The Beach.    Its a little hard to see from this distance. There must have been 1000 people on the beach.  This was a close as we decided to get as we don't like crowds.

This was our fearless captain Nong driving us on the dinghy to anther Monkey beach.

This was the end of Bamboo beach where there weren't any tourists.  The other end was a whole nother story.  By the evening they had all cleared out though.

The beach is that way!

Sailing Day 2 - Dec 29 - Ko Yao Yai to Phi Phi

Our second day gave us a better feeling about our trip.  We arrived at Phi Phi and Kayaked around Camel Rock for some beautiful views and better snorkeling.  We went to a beautiful beach surrounded by rocks.  While snorkeling we saw lots of worms (that we think were clams), huge brain coral, and John saw a purple eel!  We anchored for the night at PhiPhi and went into town for a bit of shopping.  Later that night, we went into town to see the fire dancers.  While it was a little entertaining, there was a lot of drinking and smoking going on at the areas of the fire dancers and was a little wild for our taste.

 

 

Here is a shot of our vessel.

The water around Camel Rock was beautiful.

Some of us rode by Dinghy to the beach.

This was a view from the Kayak.. the water was gorgeous.

 

This was one of the large Brain corals that Gillian spotted.

Chip tried to climb to a ledge on Camel rock to jump off...  didn't quite get to the top though...

Kayaking was awesome!!  This was a good warm-up for the rest of the trip.

 

 

Sailing Day 1 - Dec 28 - Chalong to Ko Yao Yai

We were dropped off at a commercial dock on our new home for 7 nights.  It was a 48 foot Laguna Cataraman with a Captain (Nong), Cook (Oy), and deckhand (Ming).   After staying at a large resort it was tough figuring out how we were all going to stay on the boat.  We were nervous as we sailed from Chalong to Ko Kahi Nok and Ko Khai Nai where we snorkeled.  It wasn't anything fabulous, and there were lots of tourists.  We were starting to get more nervous about our adventure.

 

The food on the boat was amazing.. Even Gillian liked it!

 

This was our approach to Ko Kahi Nok 

There were tons of fish swimming around us while we snorkeled.  A few jellyfish too!

 

After a few jellyfish stings, we moved on to Ko Khai Nai for some Kayaking.

We liked the reverse Mohawk on this island.

Finally some evening cocktails to take the edge off!  We spent most of our cruising time on this part of the boat.  It was comfortable and cool with air coming from below.