Okay, I’m way behind in this thing. Let’s start with about three days ago when we spent the day snorkeling. A Snorkel made all the difference for Crys in swimming, making it far easier for her to swim between the boat and shore. We spent most of the morning, and then a few hours in the eve in the water, hiding out in the boat during the heat of the day to avoid as much sunburn as possible. It helped, but still didn’t keep us from getting a bit more sun. Crys especially found all new places to turn red in.
The water itself was good, though not great visibility. Dad felt it was probably the worst he had seen there. That being said we could see he bottom at around 35 ft or so, so this was definitely not horrible. We saw a lot of parrot fish, some absolutely stunning sunfish, a few angel fish, some sea cucumbers, many extremely colorful clams and more. There was a ton of sponges, many grown larger than cars, some brain coral, and a little branching coral. I was surprised how little of the branching coral there was to see.
For our evening dive we took the zodiac to the northern part of the island, where the water was a bit clearer and the sponges and brain coral more prolific. There were even a handful of sea anemone about, which meant we got to see some clownfish playing within it.
I did come across a sad sight on our evening dive. About a forty or fifty square foot area existed near the shore that had become a coral graveyard. The ground was blanketed with bleached coral, including mounds and mounds of shattered branch coral. I don’t know if it’s a global warming issue or an obnoxious fisherman who decided dynamite near the shoreline was a good way to collect fish, but whatever it was it was fairly thorough. There were only a few spots of small sponges and one or two clams still living in the entire area. Who knows how beautiful that little spot was a few years back. Hopefully over time it recovers.
After another night with beautiful stars and little in the way of modernity we let loose of of our moor and set sail once more for Koh Lipi. Prior to setting sail, Barbara had pulled a couple of pillows out on the front deck to lay on. They were the big square pillows that resembled seat cushions, which made them comfy on deck. The issue came when we set sail and Barbara forgot to stow them away. After we had gotten to the open sea I heard someone call out that we “lost a pillow”. I looked over the edge of the boat, and sure enough, there was one of them floating by the boat. Dad began trying to turn the Cat around and I grabbed the long expanding hooked pole that I had grown accustom to using when grabbing moorings and headed for the back of the boat. Barbara pointed out that there was no place to hook the pillow, being flat cushions, but I was reasonably certain I could pull it in anyway if we could get within ten foot of them. I did, however, start thinking of alternatives as well. The pillow looked like it wasn’t going to sink anytime soon, which gave us time if we needed it. The zodiac would have been a pain to get out. We were in the open sea, so I wasn’t sure how the currents were. However, having been in the water the day before I knew the water was a good temp. There was a float on a long rope next to me, so figured worst case scenario, if I couldn’t get the pillow back on board with the hooked pole I could tie the float off, dive in with it, grab the pillow and have them pull me back (or pull myself back along the rope). Seemed like a feasible plan. As it happened, I didn’t need it. Dad got the Silkie within about six feet of the pillow, and I was able to drag the pillow close enough to pick it up. I then turned and looked back at the water and realized my feasible plan would have gotten me in a lot of trouble had I followed through with it. Floating just about a foot or so behind where I pulled the pillow out of the water was a one square foot box jellyfish. There’s little doubt that if I had jumped in after that pillow I would have come into contact with that thing, and my understanding is that is not a nice sting to deal with. I don’t know if these are as bad as the Aussie variety, which paralyzes the heart and lungs for about five minutes, but I really didn’t care to find out. The rest of the short trip passed without issue.When we arrived at Koh Lipe we found that all of the moors were taken save two in exceedingly shallow water. Since Dad is (thankfully) hesitant to drop anchor in coral rich areas, we hung out until the dive boats began leaving, then took one of the newly available moors and took off for the beach.
From there we lowered the Zodiac back in and wandered up to the beach and walked back the path to the favored breakfast spot for some more Thai Pancakes. I tried a Lemon Coconut this time as well as the Lemon Banana from last time. The Coconut luckily wasn’t out this time (or “finished” as the locals say.... “Sorry, coconut is finished.”) so I got to try it. Truthfully it turned out not to be as good as the Lemon Banana, though it certainly wasn’t bad.
Afterwards Dad and Barb wanted to get another massage. Crys was wary once more of a massage since her sunburn was newly worsened, so we instead spent the hour roaming about the island’s shops.
I picked up a couple of more articles of local clothing, and we did our best to avoid the sun as much as possible (a neat trick on a tropical island) before finally all joining back up, checking out of the country and heading back to the Silkie.
From there we dropped our last mooring, raised the sails and headed back to Langkawi. The sail created a nice bit of shade on the front of the boat, leaving a very nice place to spend much of the trip. Dad picked the pace up, wanting to get back to dock while the tide was still high enough to get in. The trip therefore lasted only about five hours or so, and was relatively peaceful and uneventful. We pulled in just as the sun was starting to set among the islands, pulled the boat in, and worked to get it tied off and hooked back up.
If you think parking a car is tricky, try parking a yacht. Turns out the floaty tied to the rope that I considered using to rescue the pillow was actually a fender meant to be quickly dropped down between the boat and anything it might be about to bump into. Getting the large catamaran into a docking berth only a few foot wider than it is without allowing it to bump into either side was an interesting feat. With a good amount of team work between Tami and Rio on the docs and the rest of us on the yacht we finally succeeded, though. We then tied it off, reconnected the power, and set about catching up with Tami and Rio on their few days away and discussing our adventures. We then wandered up to the club house and took some long over due showers. They have the tall shower heads that mimic rain up there, and after only being able to rinse off a bit over the past three days here and there, a good long shower with soap and shampoo felt amazingly good.
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