Sailing in Thailand – Day 2
This is Day 2 of our Sailing trip with the Moorings in Thailand.
What a great evening that was last night – anchored up completely remotely next to Ko Ku Du Yai with the delicious dinner of shrimp from the local fishermen. Here are our crew boys peeling the shrimp.
Peeling the Shrimp last night
Here is today’s charted itinerary
Sailing in Thailand -Day 2 Itinerary
In the morning, we headed south weaving through the spectacular islands.
Spectacular Islands of Thailand
First stop was Ko Phak Bia for a snorkelling stop and where I snapped this great shot of a typical longtail boat used extensively by the Thai for fishing, lugging tourists and anything on the water. The boat has a car engine mounted on a balance with a direct-drive long (long) drive shaft coming out the back. You can see the saltwater cooling lines out the back into the water. To steer, the driver pushes down on his balance handle lifting the spinning proper out of the water, he then swivels the entire engine and drive shaft and places the proper back in the water. The sight of a spinning proper waving through the air makes you want to stay very clear away. This type of boat is used extensively throughout Asia. The efficiency lies in the ease of maintenance. Car engines are relatively cheap and easy to mount. I imagine the Mercury dealership has a difficult time penetrating the market.
Thai Long Tail boat
Then further south down to the very impressive (2nd) Ko Hong. At high to mid tide, this hong is filled with water and you can dinghy in and have a delightful swim inside the impressive hong approximately 300 m in diameter. We had to anchor outside the hong in fairly deep 20 meters of water with a falling tide. The boat had 50 meters of chain so we let it all out. The winds were extremely light and so I felt safe with a 3 to 1 scope. Would have preferred 4 to 1 with all chain.
Ko Hong
Three of the female crew abandoned us and headed off on the kayak into the hong.
Paddling into the Hong
Then we headed off in the dinghy. This is the entrance.
Ko Hong entrance
And this is inside.
Inside Ko Hong
We moved on to the famous Rai Leh Beach which is renown strangely enough for rock climbing. But also the Thai version of food trucks. Below, all the boats park up on the beach and serve up delicious Thai food albeit, I did notice a few hamburgers scattered in the menus. A pleasant walk from the beach cuts you past the peninsula headland taking you the other side to a long row of very nice resorts and restaurants. This place is a good stop.
This photo of Phra Nang Beach is courtesy of TripAdvisor
We anchored in 2 meters of water at low tide being careful to let out enough chain to accommodate the 5 meters of depth sometime in the night. The cliff behind our anchoring point was incredibly impressive with 10meter long stalactites.
Rai Leh Beach
That was it for Day 2
