Thai sailas exploring the Andaman sea

Some years ago, Zach passed on an opportunity to go sailing in Turkey with me. I took my Dad with me instead.

I figured that one day, Zach might be interested and as it turned out, it was in 2016 that Zach said to me "Papa, can we go sailing this year?"

So in July, we chartered a 40' catamaran in Thailand. This is a big boat relative to equivalent sized monohulls. It had 4x double cabins, 2x single cabins and a large saloon between the hulls. Luxury.

We rounded up a crew of eight people and here are a few of our adventures. (I won't bore you with all the fun that we had but feel free to ask me for more details).

North end of Ko Dam Hok

Night light party

Biolumiscence is a magical phenomenon that you will see sometimes at night in the ocean.

One night we were anchored off the striking northern end of Ko Dam Hok - see photo. The beach is popular with daytrippers, but at night, everyone clears out.

After dining and drinking and talking, everyone moved off towards bed.

Due to the heat and humidity, a number of us were sleeping up on deck..

In answering the call of nature before going to bed, I discovered that there was a lot of phosphorescence or bioluminescence in the water (follow link for multiple examples of this happening in the world).

I went to wake up a reluctant Zach who was sleeping up on deck to show him this magnificent natural light display. Of course, all those around were intrigued and wanted to come and see too. What followed was a night light party.

We put our hands or feet in the water, and moved them around to see the water around them light up.

Phosphorescence is like sparkling diamonds. Pretty hard to photograph so the image to the right does not do it justice, but gives you an idea.

Not satisfied with the light emanating from moving hands and feet, two of the crew changed into swimmers and leapt into the water. Their entry path was clearly seen as a tube of bioluminescence.

Then everyone (except one crew member who refused to be roused at all) was in the water and putting on goggles/swim masks so as to see the display of light around their moving limbs.

Even the current flowing past the boat was sufficient to stimulate bioluminescence leaving a light trail which outlined the shape of the hull, the rudders, the ladder into the water and so forth.

Emerald Cave

The southernmost point of our trip was the island of Koh Mook, and there we went to visit the famed Emerald Cave (Tham Morakot). The 80m long cave negotiated by swimming or kayak or very small boat gives way to a "hong" which means "room" in Thai.

An 80m cave enters this hong at the left of this picture

A hong is a pool of water enclosed within a island with a small passage or opening to the ocean. They can be extraordinarily beautiful - think of The Beach.

There were about three obstacles that blocked our getting to Tham Morakot.

First, it was not especially easy to find as it is just an opening in a large cliff face. If there had been a sea of tourists as there often is, it would be easy. One crew-member spotted a cloud of spray against a cliff-face and suggested (correctly) that it was the entrance to the cave.

Second, the spray cloud was there because waves were rolling into the cave and so we would have to wait for the tide to lower to get into the opening.

Third, there was a sign saying that the cave was closed until next tourist season. That explains the lack of tourists. Stuff that, we're going anyway!

So we swam in. Now, 80m in the dark is a l-o-n-g way, especially when the only flashlight we brought filled with water and failed!

However, we finally got through and the view that greeted us was extraordinary. The hong is surrounded by high steep cliff walls and it would probably be impossible to get in if the cave was not there.

And of course, there was absolutely no-one there but ourselves. In tourist season, there are hundreds of people traipsing (well swimming, kayaking) in and out. Would still be worthwhile, but our visit was very special.

The Tempest

Our third adventure was to face a tropical tempest!

In our briefing before taking the boat charter, we were warned to watch out for dark, ragged clouds touching down to the water. These could bring some short periods of gale-force winds.

We did not see any of these rather troubling conditions until about one week into the charter.

When we did, we were well prepared. We started the motor, downed the sails, and just waited for the wind to hit. And it did hit getting up to about 50-55 knots (90-100 km/h).

And it passed in about 20-30 minutes as advertised.

All a marvellous adventure.

But then the ominous clouds came down again just an hour or two later. We downed sails again and braced ourselves, but were confident. We'd been there, done that.

However, round 2 was a little different. The ominous clouds were much larger. The winds hit 60 knots (110 km/h or 70 mph). And they lasted about three hours.

At this speed, the wind whips across the water so fast that waves are pushed down. The water takes on a streaky appearance. The rain feels like bullets when it hits your skin. And responding to a relatively minor incident such as the fittings holding up the tender-dinghy become infinitely more difficult in the wind, rain and swell.

We survived, but it did feel like a bit of a test. On returning our charter boat, we and the chartering company were delighted to see that we had sustained no major damage in the squalls. Other boats returned at the same time had not been so lucky.

Water Bottle Flip

With two young persons on board, it was inevitable that they would wile away the long hours on a boat engaging in achievements befitting their generation. Here's their take on the 2016 fad of water-bottle flipping.