For
our passage from Langkawi to Phuket we opted to keep east and sail
parallel to the mainland coast. We departed on the back of a strong
south westerly which had left a legacy of swell coming in from the
west. For this reason our first night was spent in the lee of
Tarturo island in the NE corner tucked between the big island and a
small one. A fierce lightning storm passed to the south and west of
us which we later learnt had been over Telaga.
Next
day the wind piped up from the north east and we had a super close
reach sail up to Koh Muk, a regular stop for us on this trip, dropped
the hook and went ashore for dinner at the Hill Top restaurant.
Feeling the need to push on we departed next day and had another more
fine sailing up to the northern end of Koh Lanta. By now the
westerly swell had died and we anchored in the wide open, shallow bay
on the east side. Creatures of habit we anchored in our usual spot,
went to the same massage shop we'd liked before, had gelato in the
shop opposite as before (however this time I had Amaretto flavour).
It
is calm anchorage and most pleasant ashore so we stayed here for a
couple of days before the good NE wind beckoned us onwards once more.
This time our course to Chalong in Phuket gave us a beam reach and
we flew, or so it seemed, all the way there. Passing between Koh Phi
Phi and Phi Phi Don was a wind shadow, multi day boats traversing our
course across our bow and stern – all good fun to test how
accurately we gauge whether we are going to hit or miss if we were to
maintain our course! International Colregs (collision avoidance
regulations) are a mystery to long tail boats.
Once anchored in Chalong it was a simple procedure of presenting our papers to Customs and Immigration and 'Welcome to Thailand'.
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