We're back!

Aboard the Chameleon

Stunning beauty

Well...where to begin? We just arrived back from our March break vacation in Thailand. I will give the abridged version here, and if you want to hear more when I return to Trumansburg in June, you'll have to buy me a beer.
We arrived in Phuket, Thailand on Sunday around 9:30 am and were picked up at the airport by a guy with a paper hand-written sign that said, "Mrs. Alice." I really wanted to get a picture of that, but it was not possible. On the way to the boat, we stopped and picked up sunglasses and hats. It was HOT. The kind of hot and humid that makes you want to sit in the shade. And still you'd sweat profusely, just sitting there, not moving. We met our skipper at the beach and motored out to climb aboard the Chameleon, a large catamaran sailboat that was to be our home for the next 4 days. Shane Smith was our Skipper, a young man from South Africa, and a Thai woman named Bun was our cook. We ate fabulous home cooked Thai food for lunch and dinner each day. The meals were spectacular.

The 4-day trip was pretty well planned out by Shane, so we just let him take us to the highlights of kayaking and snorkeling. The wind never really cooperated, so there wasn't a lot of sailing, unfortunately, but the big twin diesel engines got us around where we wanted to go. The best feature of the boat was the webbing across the bow. It was comfortable and cool, and when shaded, made an excellent napping spot. We all managed to catch a nap or two on the bow of the boat at one point or another.

The waters off Phuket are riddled with many steep little limestone and coral islands. Remember the tropical Island in the James Bond Movie? The one that has the weapon or the sun collecting thingy come out of the top of it? Well, that island is in the general vicinity of where we were and is affectionately called "James Bond Island." We motored past it. It was teeming with tourists, long boats, and vendors of trinkets. It's out away from land, so people really have to work to get there. Some of the islands have caves and tunnels that lead into lagoons enclosed within the islands. On Monday we visited such a cave, and had more excitement than we were expecting.

We raised anchor pretty early Monday morning to get to a place called Koh Hong. "Hong" in Thai means "room." Koh Hong had one of the most interesting and exciting caves to visit. We got there around 9:00 a.m., in time to "beat the crowds," according to Shane. He anchored off a cave opening and consulted his tide chart. By this time it was 9:10. We had, according to his chart, about an hour to explore the cave before the tide would come in and close the opening at the other end of the cave. We set off, two in each kayak, with a dry bag for cameras, and flashlights, for we were warned that after entering the cave it would get as black as pitch. In we went. It did get black, and fast. The cave was curvy, and had stalactites and bats. The water was kinda scummy and smelly. Robin pointed out that the reason there were bubbles on the surface was from the bat guano and bacteria in the water. The flashlight that I was holding in the front of our kayak was a bit whimpy, (I was wising for a powerful Mag light) but we followed the boys through the tunnel while checking out the ceiling, covered with bats. Squeaking, flying, wiggling, smelly bats. It was pretty cool.

At the end of the tunnel, there were some low openings into sunlight. In order to pass through, Rob and I had to lean way back, and we barely got under. This made me uneasy. We would not have more than about 10 minutes before we would have to get back into the cave. But I was wrong. We had less time than that, for after paddling around the interior lagoon, looking at the mangrove trees and the fabulous rock formations and flora, we headed back to the cave opening. Uh Oh. No way. It was very clear that we would have to swim through the opening and pull the kayaks through behind us. I was the first one into the water and into the cave. Yes. The water was disgusting. I should have never voiced out loud before that there was no way I wanted to swim in THAT, thanks. I went through first, and braced my feet on either side of the opening and tried to pull while Robin pushed the kayak through. The water was too high. I didn't realize it at the time, but putting one's bare feet on coral and pushing is a BAD IDEA. More on that later.

We finally had to turn the kayaks upside down, Nathan and Robin were muscling them through while I was treading water with the dry bag, paddles and flashlight. Turns out I could have touched bottom and saved myself a lot of energy, but I was a little worried. Robin said I was panicky, but mostly I wanted OUT of the water and back into the kayak. We worked together, enjoyed some tense moments, raised voices and a couple of minor injuries, utilized some some kayak rescue techniques and got out just fine. When we paddled back to the boat, Shane told us he was 5 minutes away from rescuing us. He had been nervously watching a rock near the cave opening disappear while we had been gone, and knew that things were getting tight. It was exciting...a little too exciting, but it makes a great story. Yep. I swam in bat guano, sliced the bottom of one foot, scraped the top of the other and managed to kick Robin right in the family stones. And that was only Monday.