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Firefly - Seahorses, Stonehenge and bidding farewell to Thailand
Firefly - Seahorses, Stonehenge and bidding farewell to Thailand
Today is Friday 25th March 2016 and Firefly is taking us back to Malaysia. After an uncertain start we have really enjoyed cruising the west coast of Thailand and believe that 10 weeks was about the right amount of time for us to make the most of cruising around here.
For the last 3 days we have been in the Butang Islands, the small one called Koh Lipe being the most well known - this where back in early January we first entered Thailand. Over the past few days we have been diving with a predominantly French owned and run company called Forra Diving. Their dive boats are way past the best but their 'can do' attitude was great and we were very well looked after and managed to dive twice on 'Stonehenge', the best site in the area - despite it being Spring Tides and the location being very prone to strong currents.
The first visit was on a single dive in the afternoon, timed to coincide with slack water. The current was not too strong and the spectacle was amazing. A relatively small underwater plateau covered in the most exotic soft corals we have seen since we started diving 2 years ago. In amongst this coral, growing atop colourful hard corals, there are millions of small fish and all around there are 'thick' shoals of yellow snapper fish - it is so beautiful that its hard to break away and stop looking. The first part of the dive took us down to below 25 meters in search of a black and a yellow seahorse. We found the black one, which was actually grey and the first we have seen since snorkeling in Galapagos. It was hanging on with its tail around a long thin coral and was not at all perplexed by 4 inquisitive divers - in fact it did not look like it did much at all.
The following day the first 2 dives were in strong current off Adang Island, the largest in the group. Some of the soft coral similar to what we had seen the day before was present but not in such concentrations. Although not such interesting marine life, it is always fun to drift dive, being picked up some distance by the dive boat, down current from the drop off point. Back on board the 'Mosquito' Susie requested that the 3rd dive be back at Stonehenge and although it was a little early for slack water, that was where we went and it was even better than we remembered. The dive guides love this site too and everyone emerged afterwards smiling from ear to ear.
Going ashore in the evening to pay for the diving we treated ourselves to our final dinner out in Thailand and cleared out all of our Thai Baht. The Italian run and very 'relaxed' Monkey Bar, right on the beach was recommended by our dive buddies and reassuringly busy. The 'shirtless' chefs and waiters had been out fishing earlier that day and caught a load of tuna themselves which was on special and being cooked on the BBQ. It was superb and while eating it, Susie vowed that our fishing line would be deployed the following day on our trip back to Langkawi, Malaysia.
The forecast gave very little in the way of wind and we motored away from Koh Lipe at 0930. Within a few minutes of the trolling line going out there was a Tuna hooked and as it was quite small, it was on board, despatched and gutted with a lot less fuss than is usual on board Firefly. The fish will be BBQ'd tonight when we are anchored just outside Telega Harbour. No more fish have been caught but the wind did reach 10 knots at one point before dropping down again to 6 or 7 knots and as was a close reaching course we will have sailed about 15 of the 22 mile passage albeit relatively slowly - averaging about 4 knots.
As its Friday the Immigration and Customs at Telega will be closed as are most things in this Muslim country. Check in will be done on Saturday morning and at the same time we are meeting Nasir, the guy who made our new sun awnings in December and who has just completed some modifications to our all over 'winter cover'. Useful in winter in the UK, from now on Firefly will be laid up most 'summers' in tropical places and the white canvas cover will be protecting her from the intense heat and heavy rains.
Cruising Thailand has been a great and there has been a lot to see. It certainly has a robust tourist industry and nearly everywhere we have been surprised by the amount of tourists, and the number of pleasure boats helping them to see the islands. Christmas and New Year is apparently 50% busier so our enjoyable trip back to the UK for the festive season was well timed to miss them. We did manage to find some peace and quiet up in the north and particularly enjoyed the Surin Islands. Phang Nga bay with its amazing limestone Karsts and Hongs was incredible and we have been enjoying the same kind of scenery much of the way back south along the mainland coast.
We will now be retracing our steps through Malaysia with Pangkor as our final destination where Firefly is being hauled out on April 2nd. 3 days around Langkawi will be followed by a 60 mile trip to Penang and then another similar hop to reach Pangkor.
Paul and Susie
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