Mucking About on Boats!

What a lovely day we had sailing out from Chalong Bay.  We were on a 28ft yacht callled Nadezhda skippered by Igor, who had just become a father two days beforehand.  

The water was a beautiful temperature and colour and we enjoyed getting towed on the way out to the islands.  We were lucky to have a stiff breeze and made good time under sail.

 Dada relaxed on the bow and took a nap.

 Once we got closer to Lone Island, we moored and had a great time jumping off the boat.

 TY took to boat jumping with enthusiasm and jumped off dozens of times.  Katy was a little more reticent and content to watch.

 We all really enjoyed the beautiful, clear water.

For lunch, we took the dinghy out to a beautiful, deserted powder sand yellow beach.  The sand was really like talcum powder, it was so soft, and there was a lot of coral and shells on the beach.
 

 Katy was able to indulge in her favourite beach activity - collecting shells and coral.  There were a lot of hermit crabs on this beach, each with a completely different shell.  They seemed to like congregating and we saw quite large conventions of 20-30 of them all tumbling about.

 We had a lovely Thai lunch washed down with Dehours.

 It was a wonderful feeling to be the only ones on the beach.  Quite unlike the other Phuket experiences, which tend to be very crowded these days.  The whole day was a very simple, unpretentious, slow, low-key day.  Just as it should be.

The food was simple, just one or two dishes, but really tasty.

 The kids didn't even stop for lunch.  They just kept playing out in the water the whole time.  They were having a ball!

Mama swam the 500m back to the boat after lunch, which surprised everyone, least of all herself.  Katy was thrilled and relieved to catch sight of Mama on the boat when they were getting on the dinghy.  Back on the boat, we set sail for Coral Island, giving everyone quite a lot of excitement as the kids experienced tacking, with the boat keeling at an angle, for the first time.

 The kids loved it, as did Mama and Dada.  It really reminded us of days gone by when we would go sailing with friends, or when Mama would go sailing with Uncle Bert and Uncle Jerome up in Palm Beach North of Sydney.

On the way to Coral Island, our weather luck ran out a little and we got hit with a bit of a rainstorm that sent the kids and Mo below.  TY also fell into a deep sleep.

 We made it to Coral Island though and enjoyed a lovely time snorkelling around.  Katy refused to try the snorkel but we did manage to persuade her into the water with her swimming goggles to look at all the fish.  There were quite a lot of different coloured fish around, very tame - they would swim right up and look you in the eye, demanding you to feed them bread!  We also saw blue sea anemones, lots of sea urchins, and clams.  It was wonderful!

Afterwards, we made our long way home in the rain.  It was a shame for the adults as relaxing on the way home is one of the best bits of a long day out sailing, but the kids just fell asleep for the whole way back.

It was definitely a wonderful first time sailing trip for Katy, and a great introduction to sailing and snorkelling.  Unfortunately, TY became ill on the way home, running a temperature and throwing up.  It turned out that he had a throat infection and is now on antibiotics but you would not have known it to see him having fun earlier in the day!  He was probably the most excited and active of all of us throughout the day!