We barely made it into Thailand before the time limit for our visa expired. Unfortunately, that was a weekend and overtime applied to the fees for Customs and Immigration and the Harbourmaster. We cleared in with Immigration to beat the clock, but waited til the next day to clear in with Customs to avoid the fees.
Our first view of Ao Chalong Bay as we came into south Phuket area. That white spec on the top of the mountain is a huge sitting Buddha statue.
On the main road, the sale of gasoline for motorcycles includes the recycled booze bottles with about a liter of gas in them. Another spelling smile.
Jason is in the background. From left, Dennis and Virginia off Libertad, Janice and Mick from Australia on Zoa, and Karen. We had lunch on the shore here at Ao Chalong before Libertad was getting shipped to Turkey.
The dinghy dock at Ao Chalong. The long ramp up to the jetty at low tide.
The loooonnnnngggg jetty. It is half a mile to the end of the jetty from the dinghy dock.
Jason talking with a couple from Holland at the luncheon 7 Star Yacht Transport gave for their customers. We were with the Libertad folks and knew Marieke, the 7 Star rep and she invited us to stay and join them for lunch. She is a very friendly person we met in Darwin and she gives us freebies everytime we see her!
That's Marieke smiling in the center. She's a lot of fun.
Dennis and Virginia at the luncheon before they leave for Turkey.
The luncheon spread. And then they brought out strawberry and blueberry shortcakes with vanilla ice cream. I was in heaven for a few hours!!
Ao Chalong Bay is a tourist hop off spot. The truckload of life jackets come from the tourist boats.
Nai Harn Bay around the corner from Ao Chalong. It is wall-to-wall beach chairs filled with tourists, many of whom are Russian.
Jason in a shady spot on the side deck.
Thai fishing boats rafted together.
A pretty sunset at Nai Harn.
We beached YOLO at Koh Phayam island, way up near the Myanmar border. We scrubbed the props, shafts and hulls and I gave the water line a cleaning and quick wax.
This was the first time we'd ever beached YOLO and she sunk into the sand a bit.
We were up at 4AM beginning to work on her before the tide came back in.
Waiting for the incoming tide to lift us back up and into the water. This was a nice flat sandy spot to beach a cat.
Koh Phayam Bay
Sap on a cashew tree.
More sap on a branch.
Amber in the making.
A cashew nut and fruit that has fallen from the tree. Cashew nuts grow at the end of the fruit and people eat the fruit and make drinks of it. Fallen cashews were everywhere on shore as we walked through a coconut plantation to get to the road to walk to the other side of the island.
This is where we found the road. If you didn't pay attention, you could miss the turnoff altogether.
Beach on the other side of Koh Phayam from where we anchored.
Gas station sign; 00km. Yeah, like 3 inches to the gas drum with a hand pump on it!
Jason's favorite color of bouganvillia.
Jason walking through the cashew orchard on Koh Phayam.
Cashews drying on a sheet of metal in the sun.
The painting on the bathrooms at the restaurant where we had our anniversary dinner.
View from the restaurant on Koh Phayam. That's YOLO way out on the end of the land on the right.
The Hippy Bar is well known here. It's made of driftwood, much from the tsunami of 2004 when this area was devastated. It's a hodge podge to say the least.
Karen at the prow of the Hippy Bar structure. It actually gets wet in high tide.
The Hippy Bar is quite large.
Inside the Hippy Bar.
And the clock tower works!!!
Designs in the sand.
Sunset view from our anniversary restaurant.
Thai fishing boat with all its blue barrel floats loaded on top.
Jason up the mast cleaning and tuning the rigging.
Nai Harn Beach again. Lots of Russians have taken over the popular west coast beaches near Phuket.
YOLO at anchor in Nai Harn Bay.
An ice shop in Ao Chalong. They throw the blocks into the hopper on the left and create crushed ice for the tour boats and fishing boats.
Purple jelleyfish floated by in droves one day
the hang gliders or parasailers at Nai Harn Bay. The big wind generator didn't work.
Our new sail hoisted for the first time for inspection.
We spent too little time here in Thailand to see much, but hope to come back and spend time here in a boat yard and reprovisioning before we take off across the Indian Ocean at the end of the year. I'm sure there is so much more to this area to see and do than we got a chance to see this time around.
No comments:
Post a Comment