The Boat Trip

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D-Day had arrived. I have spent the last 6 months training for today. I was like an athelete at the olympics, has all the practice paid off?

The all day boat trip consisted of visiting various local islands, stopping off for snorkelling, kayaking and swimming.... a day of hell for me :-)

I opted for a large boat for safety reasons. I figured I had less chance of falling overboard and it had two ladders to get on and off. Our first stop was Ko Phi Phi Leh and Ma ya Bay, which is the famous beach from the Leonardo Di Caprio movie "The Beach". My selection of the large boat was a mistake, doh! Large boats anchor further from the land meaning more swimming! The boat anchored opposite a cave and we were told we had to swim over to the cave which would lead us to the Ma ya Bay, I gulped, nooooooooooooooooo. I found the most buoyant life jacket, grabbed my float and climbed down into the deep blue sea where Chad was waiting patiently for me. Swimming to the cave was the easy part, getting out of the water and through the cave was hard. We had to climb over some very sharp rocks and drag ourselves up by ropes to get into the cave whilst being continuously knocked off balance by the waves. I was having soooooooooooo much fun.... not ! Once through the cave it was only a few minutes walk (with cut feet) to the gorgeous bay. The sand is blindingly white and the water so clear.

Chad and I had a quick dip before heading back to the cave allowing ourselves as much time as possible to get back to the boat. When we got back to the cave there were some people taking photos of a snake, which someone said was poisonous. All very nice but this snake was blocking our route through the cave, we bided our time and snuck past quickly when it was looking the other way :-) As we were nearing the end of the cave and wadding through the water, we heard a woman shout "swimming snake!, swimming snake!" Sh*t ! We hopped onto a rock just in time as the snake slowly swum past. As a non-swimmer, I must say getting into the ocean is not easy, even with a life jacket on. Getting into the sea, with sharp rocks and deadly snakes doesn't make it any easier :-) Chad chose our course back carefully and holding onto my hand we timed our leap of faith to catch a receding wave. It was surprisingly easier to get back to the boat and in no time at all we were safely aboard, phew ! (see cave photo)

After visiting a couple of snorkelling sites we had lunch and then went to Bamboo Island which was gorgeous. Chad and I managed to borrow one of the boat's kayaks (the last one)... yey :-( We kayaked to the island and I went for a splash (life jacket still on) while Chad took the kayak back to the boat. Our intention was to swim/snorkel back to the boat via a reef. I don't know how Chad talked me into it because once I was alone I saw how far out the boat was, what had I done! Whilst waiting for Chad to swim back with the snorkelling gear, I noticed loads of lovely fish swimming around me which made me feel as though I was in the Finding Nemo movie, I could even touch them! The swim back wasn't too bad, I found as long as I kept looking down at the coral and fish it took my mind off the distance. Even though it seemed like miles to the boat (it obviously wasn't) we were soon on board and I looked back at my achivement with pride, these life jackets are great :-)

This is the distance I had to swim back !!!!

To round off an eventful day, we watched the sun set over Phi Phi from the top deck arriving back to the pier, safe and sound.... ahhhhhhh, lovely :-) I had a fantastic day and actually enjoyed being in the water :-)

Ko Phi Phi has been gorgeous - leave for Ko Lanta tomorrow

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