South to Coral Island and Snorkelling

 Nov 21, 2022

Oops, Graham was up at 2:00 am, tonight we are determined to stay up later! I forced myself back to sleep and finally woke up at 6:45, at least I was in bed until the sun was up. Resort breakfast again, I'm really enjoying the Indian food for breakfast. It so different to our typical Canadian breakfast. 

Today we are heading to the southern part of Phuket Island, Rawai Beach. The hope is to find a long boat and head to Coral Island for some snorkelling. The roads and traffic are easy to navigate, we've come to the realization that scooters are an excellent way to travel around. You can often bypass stopped traffic, always find easy parking and you can look around a bit more. We are travelling with a bit of speed so sometimes when we come across a quiet road we slow down and spend time looking around as we go along. About halfway on our journey we stopped at Kata Beach and got some smoothies from a cart along the beach. I had a mango passionfruit smoothie and we enjoyed them on the beach watching the waves crash in. There was a few surf boards along the beach so the surf must get good here. 

We continued along, the jungle between the little beach towns is thick, tall trees covered in luscious green vines. It just walls of multi coloured green vegetation with the occasional flowering bush. We briefly stopped at a look out before reaching Rawai Landing Pier. The was a fellow sitting there and after a quick discussion on price and time we had a private long boat booked and met him at the end of the pier. It was meant to be, in no time we were on the water and cruising to Coral Island. 

The long boats are made of hardwood and smell great. They have a faint aroma similar to the old wooden Rendal used to have, what ever the hard wood in it that makes for good boats is still being used. The engine is on a swivel, no reverse gear. Just swivel the prop at the right angle and the captain can send the boat exactly where he wants it. No muffler on the diesel engine either, the operator mustn't have good hearing after being next to it for long periods of time. The swell was going the same direction as us on the way out to the island and we were going along with the wind. In no time we were dropped off on Banana Beach and ready to snorkel. (100 baht per person for beach access, but that also gets you a beach chair and use of the bathroom). Our captain recommended us head to one end of the beach for some good snorkelling. Coral Island did not disappoint! There was a good coral shelf just off shore where it was the perfect depth for diving down to the bottom and slowly swimming along and up to the surface again. Tons of huge blue clams, schools of colourful fish living in certain corals and a few bigger schools of fish just off the reef swimming in the open water. The whole side of the beach was sectioned off to boats to keep the swimmers and snorkelers safe. We spent good long time in the water enjoying having it nearly to ourselves. Only once back on shore did a few other people wander into the water where we were swimming. We sat on the beach for a bit to dry off before wandering back to the long boat. 

The journey back we were bucking the wind and waves, got a bit wet but good thing we were in our bathing suits. As we neared the wind shadow of shore the waves calmed down and we cruised back into the pier. The whole trip took about three hours and by now we somehow were starting to get hungry. Quickly we found a pier side restaurant right on the water. There was lots of seafood on ice just waiting to be cooked. They would bring the items to your table for approval before cooking them up however you liked. I had a tasty coconut water (the inners were excellently sweet too) and Graham had a coke. Again we feasted, this time with spring rolls, garlic and black pepper squid, glass noodle salad and fired rice. Its hard to believe we will ever be hungry again with how much food we continue to eat. 

We took a more inland route back north, rode straight back to our resort. After the salty boat ride, hot lunch spot and the dusty roads, no surprises we just straight into the pool. We both tried to nap in order to get more on a normal sleep pattern. I briefly dozed off but Graham was able to have a long nap. I woke him up just after sunset, worried he would be sleeping too much. We put our rain jackets on and headed out to Patong. We had a couple margaritas up on the hill side looking down at Patong from a roof top patio. It was nice looking down on all the bustling of taxis, scooter and the night life getting started. We headed down to walk a few of the Patong streets again. We parked on the outskirts of the busy area and wandered in. It is interesting to see the craziness again and we window shopped, gawked and laughed at the chaos around us. We could tell it was going to rain, so we hopped onto our scooters and rode to find a dinner spot. We ended up at a Mexican restaurant on our side of town, near our hotel. By now everything else was closed and although we didn't feel like Mexican, we were somehow hungry. Turns out they also do Thai food, so we gorged again and washed it down with a margarita and a Thai beer. The squid fishing boats were all out with their green lights shining into the water, the whole sky was lit up green. The restaurant was right on the cliff over looking the ocean and we had a good view into the night. It was just us and one other couple in the restaurant so they figured now would be a good time to do some welding in the kitchen. We laughed as the chefs worked around the welders, as long as you don't mix ingredients I'm sure its all fine. 

As soon as we started scootering the sky opened up. Of course we didn't put on rain jackets for the last short ride but boy did we get instantly soaked. Thunderous rain came down and we rushed home just in time for it to stop. Didn't time that trip too well, good thing it was time to go to bed. At least we finally made it to a later hour and rolled into bed around 11pm, maybe actually sleep in tomorrow.