Island-hopping in the Andaman sea, we left Ko Yao Noi on our rented catamaran, Eos. We were heading for the Phi Phi island group about 25 miles to the south, but there was plenty to see along the way.
Ko Hong
We anchored off Ko Hong, which has an internal lagoon approached by a cleft in the cliffs. It was too narrow and busy to get closer with the yacht, but we took the tender in to explore, visiting in two shifts to avoid overloading the dinghy. It was Ivana’s first time at the helm, and she was only slightly nervous of all the traffic in the narrow cleft.
The Hong Lagoon was busy with tourists, many of them in long-tails. This was the first time that we’d had a chance to really look at these unique boats.
The main feature of a long-tail is a very lengthy propeller shaft on a pivot that allows it to be manoeuvred around through 180 degrees or more, or lifted for shallow conditions, or even completely clear of the water. The propeller is typically balanced by an enormous unsilenced truck or car engine, necessarily out in the open right next to the helmsman, and very loud indeed.
Here’s a short video of our circuit around the lagoon, including footage of long-tails in (loud) use.
A little further around the island, we discovered where all the tourists were coming from. There was a small beach with a roped-off swimming area, and a cafe. We had some trouble locating a free mooring, but in the end a friendly local tour operator cast off and let us have theirs.
Embarrassingly, we not only missed the pick-up, which turned out to be very heavy, but also lost the boat-hook overboard. The locals came back and recovered our hook, tied a lighter line to the buoy and handed it over, which was nice of them. They must get endless charter boats stuffing up.
Having secured the mooring and returned the line to its owner, we took the dinghy ashore and ate a spectacular meal comprising about ten different dishes, finishing up with an excellent baked fish. We washed it down with the juice of many coconuts, because we were all starting to suffer from heat exhaustion.
Klong Muang
Back on the yacht, we decided to head for the mainland to the east, hoping to find an anchorage near to Klong Muang. Thus far on this trip, we had motored almost everywhere, because there hadn’t been any wind, but suddenly we found ourselves with a usable breeze, and hoisted sail.
The sail plan turned out to be not brilliant, and we only achieved 5.5 knots in acceptable wind, which is pretty poor for a catamaran. It also felt very strange to turn the engine off, and instead of blissful silence, still have the rumble of the generator. The charter company had rather cheekily billed the generator as an optional extra, although without it the yacht was not capable of keeping its batteries charged overnight, and it was the only way to run the (very necessary!) air conditioner.
On arrival off Klong Muang beach, we found that we couldn’t get the main sail down. The top car kept jamming in the track. We messed around with different points of sail, and different angles of the topping lift, and eventually dragged it down. We had a look at the cars and couldn’t see anything immediately wrong, but there was evidence that somebody had once constructed some kind of fitting with short lengths of poly line and rope, but it didn’t make any sense to us.
We scratched our heads, and then Ivana made some very strong vodka-lime-sodas, and we gave up.
David and Mirjana went to shore to check out the restaurants, and Andrew Vananh and Ivana went swimming and kayaking. There was another of the strong currents which seem to be a feature of this area, which swiftly drew them to shore. When they were ready, I went out in the tender and towed them back in. Then we had a bit of fun jumping off the bow and being swept between the hulls and out at the stern, where I’d rigged a mermaid line to catch us.
The shore party had chosen the Andalay Beach Bar for our evening’s entertainment, and as night fell, we found ourselves almost the only customers.
We had a good meal and a lot of laughs, and then returned to Eos for some hilarious drinking games. I woke up next morning on the trampoline, still slightly worse for wear, being scolded by a swallow perched on the rail.
After breakfast, some of the crew went to shore for provisions.
When they returned. the wind picked up so we weighed anchor and hoisted sail…. or attempted to. This time we couldn’t get the top car to go up the mast. Again, we played with the topping lift and finally got it up, albeit with the top triangle forlornly flopped to one side. Tidying the deck, I found a broken zip tie at the base of the mast, which might once have connected that mysterious bit of poly rope to the top of the sail… but now the whole thing was at the top of the mast, and we weren’t in the mood to struggle it down again, so a repair would have to wait til later.
As we headed out to sea, the air temperature increased dramatically. We were very thankful that we had chosen the optional generator to keep the interior cool and to give us some respite from the muggy heat on deck. Then there was a loud ‘bang’, and the generator stopped. We got it started again a few times, but it would only run with the air conditioner switched off, which was a bit pointless.
At least the boat was quiet when we turned the engines off.
KO PHI PHI DON / Phi Phi Island
It was a long passage to Phi Phi Island, making no more than 5.5 knots in the sweltering heat, with a floppy main, but at least we were sailing.
We arrived at the island cluster and dropped anchor off Monkey Beach, which had a marked-off shallow swimming area around some coral bommies that also served as a fish nursery, and a long thin beach which was home to several families of crab-eating monkeys.
They were interesting to watch, with the young play-fighting among the boulders while the older ones tried to get some rest. They were pretty cheeky too. While we were there, a monkey got hold of a few things from careless tourists; we saw a Go-Pro, a wallet, and a water bottle. The first two were exchanged for bribes, and the bottle was easily opened and poured out for a drink.
I had paddled to shore in one of the kayaks, and hadn’t left anything aboard, but even so the monkeys opened the storage lids and pulled out the net bags to see if there was anything worth having.
A lot of charter catamarans appeared on the horizon, so we returned to the yacht, dropped the mooring buoy, and nipped around to the next bay before it got too crowded. This was off Loh Dalum Beach, which is known for more of a tourist party vibe than the calmer, more natural beaches that we had enjoyed so far. We found a good anchorage before the fleet arrived and jammed themselves in all around us.
Some park rangers appeared, and demanded 2400 baht (around $100) for the privilege of anchoring outside the national park. This was clearly a scam, we recognised them from Monkey Beach and they were on their way home from work. Nevertheless, the girls had fun bartering with them and sent them away with 600 baht which probably bought them a few beers that night.
We took the opportunity to have a good look at the sail cars on the mast, and worked out a solution. It wasn’t pretty, but it should stop the cars from jamming and provide us with our full sail area.
Loud music and strobes had started up ashore. A few of us took the dinghy into the bay, which turned out to be a tricky proposition as the tide was low and it is strewn with coral bommies. In the end, we lifted the propeller out of the water and paddled in, taking careful note of the zig-zag routes that the locals were taking in their long-tails, some of the turns marked by floating clumps of plastic garbage tied together with poly rope.
One of our missions was to try to arrange a water taxi to get the others over from the yacht. We had a discussion with a long-tail driver rafting up with some others, and after some robust discussion with his friends, he suggested a fee of 2400 baht. Curiously, this is the same amount that the rangers tried on us earlier. We thanked him and continued on.
With the tide as it was, I couldn’t get any closer than about 100 metres from the beach in the dinghy, so Mirjana and Ivana waded to shore to arrange some provisions. I was bobbing around by one of the debris-markers waiting for their return, when the rest of the crew appeared on a long-tail which they had hailed as it passed the yacht, and which had agreed to take them close to shore for 100 baht.
Dusk was falling, and I was no closer to getting the tender to shore, so I felt it prudent to paddle it back to the yacht before full dark. I carefully followed the local route back and forth across the bay and out to sea, found our yacht amongst the pack, and hoisted and stowed the dinghy. By now it was full dark as I launched one of the kayaks, held a torch between my knees, and began the long paddle back to the beach. Long-tails were roaring past, loud and fast and often unlit, and I waved my torch at them and tried not to think of the blades whirling at head height.
Once ashore, I buried life vest and paddle in the sand, put the kayak on top, and tied it to a fence post above the tide line. It was time to party.
But first… where were the rest of the crew? The bars all along the beach were hopping with tourists and loud music. I wandered up and down a bit, saturated in sweat and seawater from my long stint of paddling. I received a handful of confusing messages on my phone, which only made sense later when I discovered that they were not all together, but separated across several bars. At any rate, it didn’t matter, because as I was threading through the crowds I ran into Mirjana and Ivana drinking at a table. We came to understand that the others had now congregated at a restaurant called Anna’s, so we walked away from the beach and into town.
We had almost arrived at the correct street, when I suddenly realised that as well as being sweaty and soaking wet, I wasn’t wearing any shoes. I didn’t want to be refused service at what was probably quite a nice restaurant, so I nipped into a handy store and bought a pair of sandals. Then, around the corner, we found the entrance to Anna’s, with a large sign advising that all shoes should be removed before entry. How I laughed.
We had a really good meal at Anna’s, including stir-fried morning glory, a new dish to me, which reminded me of a cross between fine beans and bok choy. The rest of the food was uniformly excellent, and we left full and happy.
Back at the beach, we joined a throng of people on plastic chairs, outside a bar where fire-dancers were juggling flaming sticks. One crowd-pleaser was to line people up with cigarettes in their mouths, and light them all with whirling balls of fire. Oh, and there was a flaming penis on the beach. We’re not sure why.
We ordered some beers and some gin-and-tonics, and found to our amusement that the cocktails came in buckets. Literally, buckets. There must have been at least half a bottle or more of gin in each one.
Eventually we judged that we had enough slumming it, and walked back to where I had stashed the kayak. Annoyingly, somebody had gone to the trouble of digging up the paddle and stealing it. The tide had come in now, and there were long-tails waiting by the beach, so we engaged one to take us home and to tow the kayak as well.
Just as we were boarding, Vananh appeared brandishing my paddle; she had found it abandoned in a nearby park.
Tired and happy, we partied quietly for a bit longer on the yacht, then oozed to bed. I woke on the forward trampoline as usual, to a light breeze and blue skies, to the clanking of anchor chains as the charter fleet left on the dawn tide, and to the ear-splitting roar of the long-tails warming their engines for another day’s work. It was time to move on.