The generator turned off at 6am sharp – leaving us without a fan – so we woke up sweaty and clinging to our sheets. At 7am it was already around 26ºC.
At 10am we grabbed some goggles and flippers and jumped on board the long tail boat with another English couple and headed for Koh Phi Phi Ley after dropping the owners children off at school along the way.
The waters en-route were quite rough but calmed down as we approached the huge lime karsts. The sheer cliffs looked as though they were melting into the water, as huge ‘droplets’ of rock hung down toward the water. We passed an enormous cave that seemed to be held up by dozens of bamboo trucks.
A little further on we crept into a bay – completely sheltered from the open sea and surrounded by towering cliffs green and flush with trees. The water must have been over 40 foot deep and yet we could see each individual rock and fish as clear as if we were looking into a glass aquarium tank! Neither of us had seen water this crystal clear and blue and abundant with life or scenery this spectacular in all our lives. It was just breath-taking. We were allowed to snorkel for 10 short minutes before we moved onto the next incredible bay – the marine life was better than 2 mile reef in Mozambique and diving in the Comores put together.
At the far corner of the bay – a rickety wooden ladder rose out of the water and up onto a rocky ledge. The path from there lead to the famous “Maya Beach” where the movie staring Leonardo Di Caprio, “The Beach” was filmed. Myself and the English girl (from Wandsworth apparently) were tired out from the snorkelling so stayed back on the boat while Quint and the Spanish guy went on to explore. The waves really were crashing up against the rocks where the ladder came down into the water, making it very tricky and tiring to scramble up.
I should have gone with – but at the time we didn’t know the “Beach” lay on the other side. The waters were getting rough and more and more boats were coming into the bay and tying up to our boat (that was tied to the raft of floating drums) which made things worse.
I started to feel a bit wobbly. I lay down. – I know dad, this was a bad idea. When Quint eventually scrambled back onto the boat insisting I had to go and take a look. I was barely able to wrap my fingers around the water bottle, let along put my goggles and flippers on and jump back into the water. At this stage i couldn’t care less about the ‘stupid beach’. The others came back about 20 minutess later, which meant I had to sit up to make room for them. Oh dear. I apologized in advance to the boat driver and the other couple and crawled to the front of the boat, stuck my head overboard and – well – i’m sure you know how the rest of the story goes.
I had never been so glad to see a cheeseburger and greasy chips in all my life as when we landed back on shore at the bungalow.
We had a nap and spent the afternoon trying to upload photos but failed. Dinner was a bit disappointing – the motion of rocking on a boat that still lingered didn’t help the situation...
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