For those of you not so familiar with Thai, Ko is the word for island and Ao is the word for bay. So most places are defined with Ko or Ao so that one knows where one is or is heading.
Anyway the stop after Ko Taratao was to be Ko Kradan. We had info from some fellow cruisers of a resort on the island. However, we were going in blind and that in itself made a bit of a cruising story as we made more mistakes on the island then we have made in a while and looking back things could have ended up a lot worse.
We found a bay sort of where we were looking and hey there was another boat in the same place. Right? (Mistake one). Anyway we didn’t really like the way the hook snug up so we thought we should send a diver down to check the anchor. A quick look showed we had found the one sandy spot in the area and the anchor was indeed well snug. So we quick showered and readied the dinghy for a trip ashore. We knew the resort we were looking for was on the other side of the island. So after rushing off the boat (mistake number two) we got the dinghy ashore and found a path over the hill to the other side. Why I say rushing off the boat was mistake two, is we left without a flashlight or turning on the anchor light. Anyway once on the other side of the island we thought maybe we were on the wrong island, as we found no civilization anywhere other than some fisherman way south of us. So we started walking, and walking and walking. After about 45 minutes we finally got to the fishermen and they said that way i.e. further south. Of course our Thai isn’t that great, so do we carry on or back to the boat and try again the next day better prepared as it was running a bit late. (Mistake three we carried on) Anyway finally we started finding resorts and figured out the one we wanted was at the bottom. We finally made it and found the resort. Cold drinks and good food, hey things are looking up. Mistake four was, oh lets stay for dinner and walk across the island from the south, a proper path and everything. But now when we hit the beach we discovered that our bay was not only one bay too far North it was two and we had to negotiate across two large sets of rocks in order to get back to the dinghy. Remember I said we had no flashlights and no anchor light on Sari Timur to figure distance. Also there wouldn’t be any moon for a couple more days. Shall we head back and go the way we know or continue on. Mistake five we carried on. Very slowly we made our way to the next bay and here after a brief rest we continued on. We thought about leaving Pauline there as it looked most likely that we would get as far as we could and then hit the water and swim to the next bay. Remember it was a moonless night, no flashlight, no anchor light and lots of rocks. Anyway we made another 30 minutes progress, which was not too far and it was decided it was too dangerous to continue. So into the water headed Mark. He swam, leaving Pauline behind, sitting on a rock with the water up to her ankles. After about 30 minutes or so he came along a fisherman and paddled up to him hoping to bribe him to tow him to the beach only to find he was in a canoe which meant two people would be swimming if he tried to get aboard and so he waved goodbye and kept swimming but now he had a reference point and realized he was making really good progress probably because of a current. Anyway pretty shortly he could see the outline of Sari Timur and figured the bay with the dinghy had to be a right turn now. Shortly the breakers on the beach were in sight and remembering the rocks we had to sneak the dinghy through, he decided best to swim with his flip-flops on his hands until he was lying on the beach. Launched the dinghy. Went back to the boat, turned on the anchor light so Pauline knew he made it. Brought not one but three flashlights and went back and try to find where he left Pauline. Anyhow he did but made Pauline swim out to the dinghy as the rocks were too sharp to negotiate in the dark and even with a flashlight, we were not going to make mistake six. Anyhow finally back on board, we slept well that night. The next day we decided to take the dinghy around the island and also figured out just how far Mark had swum. It looked to be about a mile according to the GPS and looked a little more daunting in the daylight. Anyway the next morning we tried to pull the anchor and it was stuck. Tried putting a lot of tension on it in hopes the boat mass would break it out of what ever the chain was snagged on but not happening. Did we say no mistake six? Well on with the dive gear and we found the chain was wrapped around a big rock. With all of the tension and the boat bouncing it was a bit of a task to get the anchor untangled. Suddenly, Pauline released a bunch of chain and now it could easily be unhooked. When Mark hit the surface he was told the reason Pauline let out the chain was because the bow roller was broken. Whoops! We got the anchor up and worked on the bow roller underway. It turned out not to be the bow roller but the bracket it sits on so we could fix it temporarily with a couple of G clamps and when we get to Phuket, fix the bracket.
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| At anchor |
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| Pauline sat next to the big rock |
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