Sea Kayaking in Phang Nga Bay

Donn and I were fortunate to spend about a week in Phuket, Thailand. This business/pleasure trip was an annual meeting of school directors for the school organization we work for. We arrived a couple days early, due to available plane connections to and from Cotonou. It's a difficult place to fly out of and in to, folks. This time it worked to our advantage!

For one of Donn's "open" days, I booked a sea kayaking trip. Included in the cost was transport to and from our hotel, water and lunch, and a local guide.

We were picked up bright and early, 7:15 am, and driven from the southwestern tip of the island to the northeastern side. Once we safely arrived (our driver was not a safe driver!) at the marina, we waited to meet our guide for the day. While we were waiting Donn spotted a local inhabitant, a gibbon, I think. He had walked(?) into the restaurant directly underneath where he is sitting, grabbed something from a table, and then climbed up onto the tin roof.

An opportunistic monkey!

The marina was teeming with activity, mostly with boats arriving from other places. The marina itself was primitive. Boats just pulled up to the dock to unload and load. Boats that were moored there tied on to other boats closest to the dock.

Many of the boats are powered by motors that look like they belong in a truck or car engine. The propeller is attached to the motor by a long drive shaft (20 feet). The boat is steered by the person who can wield the motor-propeller. It looks like a lot of work to me.

He eventually straddled the rod and used his leverage to steer and speed up.

Our ferry to the island where the kayaks were was a more modern one, to be sure.

On our way to meet up with the kayaks, we saw in the distance many of the islands that dot Phang Nga Bay. If you've seen the James Bond movie "The Man With the Golden Gun", then you'd recognize the area we kayaked.

Cue in James Bond theme song.

It took us about 45 minutes to get to the kayaks, which were on another boat called a longtail. It's mostly used as a traditional fishing boat for the area.

Donn and our skipper of the longtail.

It was fun trying to figure out which island we were headed to first.

This is the first island we kayaked around. Doesn't the sandy beach look inviting?

The first island we went to had an inner lagoon. The tide was too low for us to kayak into it, so we walked into it instead and saw and heard some unusual things. Fruit bats! They were quite noisy, making screeching-like sounds. If we moved closer we would've disturbed them, so use your imagination!

Cue in "When U Love Somebody" (some of you might get the reference) :)

We kayaked around three different islands, stopping for lunch at the second one. We had some open-sea traveling to do between islands, which was fine (easy, wind at our backs, etc), until the last open-sea paddle.

The longtail boat met us at the 2nd and 3rd islands. This is where we had lunch. The cicadas in the cliffs were very noisy! We couldn't see them, though.

I selected this particular guide service because the trip was advertised as one for people who want to get away from the tourists. Well, that certainly was the case! We only saw local fishermen in their boats. We had the islands to ourselves! It was great!

Open-sea time!

In a lagoon . . . Our guide, Bao, was hoping we would see some monkeys come down from the cliffs. I think they were napping, though.

 

If you look closely, you'll see a water monitor lizard on the rock. They were very shy; we had to take a picture quickly before they crawled away.

Taking a breather before the final open-sea paddle.

At our last inlet stop, we were fortunate to see a sea eagle fly around. It came into the inlet, glided around a couple times and then soar away. It think it was checking us out. I was too awe-struck to take a picture!

We spent a lot of time in or on the water, whether in a ferry, longtail, or kayak. The last open-sea paddle took us into the wind with some swells to contend with. This was also the longest paddle (at least it seemed like it!). Safety was not a concern as well. Did you notice that we didn't wear life jackets? If I had a chance to do this again, I'd like to try a two- or three-day camping trip. I think we'd get to see more wildlife as well as experience camping out next to the warm ocean waters.

When we arrived back at our hotel, we were extremely salty and wet and tired. All in all, it was a great day!