A brush with death

My visit to Ang Thong Marine National Park was my closest experience with death and I say this with no malice towards to the crew that helped us along and fully believing that it was my misfortune to have travelled on a day that the weather was extremely rough. To cut a long story short, we were troubled by waves bigger than what our tiny speedboat could handle both on our way to Ang Thong and back. With the sea being so turbulent, there was absolutely no way that we could snorkel in there. All we really got to see was the magnificent Talay Nai ("The emerald lake") -- a salt water lake enclosed by mountains in the middle of Ang Thong Marine Park. A word about Ang Thong -- its a collection of 41 islands (I think) of which only 3 are inhabited. Its been a marine park from the 80's and is a protected area by virtue of its vast coral reefs and underwater life. It was a pity we couldn't enjoy much of that.


On our way back our boat was rocked by huge waves (filling the vessel with water and drenching us to the skin) and my thoughts kept wandering from what will happen to the photos on my camera to who my insurance nominee was to how I'd take my wife ashore if our boat was to capsize. I must compliment the Seahawk crew that conducted the trip for us though -- they stayed calm right throughout and helped our confidence all the way through. If I travel to Samui again, I'll certainly visit Ang Thong with them one more time (though with a double check on the weather). My wife lost her cellphone in the waves; though I'm happy we came back alive, and with a story to tell at the end of it all. I managed to snap an encounter with a few little sea turtles, as you'll see in the picture above. This was during lunch at the local fisherman's village -- lunch was pretty good and yes, the turtle wasn't part of it)So all wasn't bad! My advice: do keep Ang Thong on your itinerary if you plan to visit Samui; just ensure you check that your crew knows what weather to expect.