There were storms overnight, which was a little scary considering we were attached to a mooring buoy 20 metres from sandstone cliffs in an anchorage described by the pilot guide as suitable for day visits only. Hey ho. Sailors aren’t averse to a few risks…
The next day we had breakfast, drank fresh coffee and watched the clouds from a cool cockpit. A colony of frenetic sooty terns whirled, glided and chatted right next to us. Then the rain stopped and American radioed Jamie to invite him on a “Retrieve the Spear Diving Adventure”.
Koh Ha is a famous dive spot, and as American had full tanks and needed a buddy, Jamie readily agreed to accompany him.
They set off in pursuit of American’s lost spear–it had jumped overboard while he was gathering it together with the rest of his diving paraphernalia. Just to make things more interesting Jamie, who had needed more weights to get lower in the water, managed to drop them too. It was now a “Retrieve the Spear and Weight Diving Adventure”.
While the boys played in 15 metres of water for 45 minutes, following fish, admiring the coral, playing with an eel and finding their lost equipment, Alicia and Liz stayed on the beach. The silk-smooth white sand only appears at low tide and they wanted to make the most of it. They put the world to rights until American appeared from out of the surf with a big, fat grouper on the end of his spear.
It was one of the grandest days we had yet experienced in Thailand. A special place in a moment when everything came together: anchoring among nesting birds close to the rockfaces, seeing off squalls, diving among the many coral reefs, chatting on a perfect white beach and ending with freshly-caught bar-be-cued fish (but more of that in the next blog).
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