The View From Our Bathroom Window

When we first got Aroha way back in Dubai days, on one of our first weekends we motored a short distance from the marina to anchor in a sheltered, crescent shaped man made island. Having a shower onboard that night, I looked out of the bathroom window at a beautifully lit mosque ashore, grinning ear to ear at the start of the adventures our new toy would bring us. In the morning, half asleep and having my morning wee, I looked out the same bathroom window at a white sand beach. It took me a while to realise that the tide had turned us around to give us the opposite view, but it was a good realisation at how easily we can change the view “from our bathroom window”.

There’s a huge variety of anchorages available to us here in Thailand, despite the small cruising area we’re choosing to keep to. To me, that’s the big attraction of sailboat cruising in this part of the world – you don’t have to go far to find a new anchorage, which may have a completely different feel from the last.

Our copy of the excellent “SE Asia Pilot” book is becoming well thumbed and quite tatty in a “we’re-getting-great-use-out-of-this-book” way. Many page corners are turned over, marked with post its, and notes such as “must visit!” or occasionally “avoid” scrawled across its pages. It’s a great starting point as it lists several anchorages for most islands, but the reality is that you can anchor pretty much anywhere you want so long as the depth and bottom profile (sand, mud etc) suits the conditions. The big no no is anchoring on coral, and we also try to avoid the busiest routes for the tourist longtails. Those wasp-like boats may be very photogenic, but they can really chop up the water as they thunder past!

The Navionics app that we use for navigating shows the depths (including adjustments for tide) and bottom conditions and even better, other users can add reviews which often note the anchor holding conditions, local attractions like snorkelling spots, but also where you can get fuel or even the best noodles ashore!

We try to choose anchorages that offer shelter from the prevailing wind and waves but also close to snorkelling reefs, caves or hongs (lagoons) that we want to explore and sometimes bars and restaurants ashore. We exist these days at quite a sedate pace and so we unsurprisingly find ourselves gravitating towards the more isolated and calm areas, but it’s nice to mix it up.

At one end of the spectrum are uninhabited islands. Thailand has an admirable number of marine national parks – protected from fishing and development, but otherwise available to visit. Google tells me that Thailand has 403 national parks / wildlife sanctuaries / forest parks that cover an impressive 31% of the country’s land and sea territory!

Between the nautical charts, google maps satellite view and observing tourist boats, it’s normally quite easy to select pretty snorkelling spots and I can easily spend an hour or two each day swimming over the coral watching the sea life. What’s missing from the national park islands though are walking tracks ashore. I think it’s a combination of most tourists not being on isolated islands long enough and also the idea in Asia that a walking path must be paved and pretty, not just a simple track through the forest. The “need” to over engineer paths means they’re seldom built!

I initially thought that the national park fees were quite expensive, especially considering that most other things here are quite cheap. However, on reflection, the national park status protects the islands and the oceans around them and even better, the fee often covers national park mooring buoys. The one where we’re currently anchored even has recycling facilities and showers ashore – a real treat when you’re used to rationed water on board! For a two week stay at Koh Surin National Park we paid just under £100 – covering park fee and mooring buoy use. That feels like good value and a fee that we’re more than happy to pay, knowing that fee is being put to good use.

At the other end of the anchoring spectrum are the crazy-busy, highly-touristed islands like Phuket and Phi Phi. They’re fun for a few days and you can get everything that your typical tourist here wants – tasty food, beaches, bars, scuba, tattoos… It’s one thing staying on islands like that but bringing a yacht can be a bit more stressful. To start with, there’s so much boat traffic that simply anchoring and finding a place to land the dinghy can be quite daunting! Life at anchor becomes a rollercoaster of long tails and speedboats zipping past at what feels like all hours. We anchored at Koh Phi Phi, enjoyed some great scuba diving, beach fire shows and even a Burger King treat, but were quite happy to depart for calmer waters after about a week.

We’ve found our sweet spot between deserted and crazy-busy. Whilst we enjoy our own company, it’s nice to have the option of going ashore and meeting other people, having someone else to cook for you and joining activities that we can’t do independently, like scuba diving or surf lessons. We also must cater for the domesticated side of life which only the more developed destinations can satisfy – changing money, topping up on fuel, and fruit and veg supplies. And the good news is that Thailand thrives on these kind of middle-ground places – touristy enough to have decent facilities, but still with local colour.

One such location was Koh Phayam, a low key island on the west coast of Thailand. I didn’t expect to find surfing here in Thailand, so I was pleasantly surprised to find lessons and beginner friendly conditions there. It’s something I’ve always wanted to try. A friend took me for an afternoon about twenty years ago, and I’d tried briefly as a kid almost twenty years earlier, so, you could say I’m a regular surfer – my next lesson’s due in 2043! My childhood experience involved being scraped along the sandy bottom and the humiliation of taking my red-raw bottom to the local pharmacy for some antiseptic cream and dressings.

We learn new things all the time when we’re kids, but less so as adults. I was lucky that my mum encouraged my sister and I to try many things but as an adult I find I need to make an effort to remove excuses to try something new. This time was a more pleasant experience, with a nice Italian instructor. His shouted encouragement “Bry-AN dees is your waave, Bry-AN, your waave!” reminded me of my first snowboarding lesson, also with an Italian instructor “Bend dee knees, Bry-AN! Like a mon-key!”. Granted, I think I’ve lost some flexibility since my previous board lessons, but the thing I found most difficult was reading the waves. With Rico yelling at me, I’m thinking “What wave? You mean that little ripple forming way out there….?” Like many things, practice makes perfect. The surf conditions the following days weren’t forecasted to be any good, so we moved on and so I didn’t have the chance to practice, but we plan to return next season for a refresher lesson and hopefully some beginner-friendly practice sessions.

It’s funny thinking that we’ve found more variety than we expected, just a few months earlier. I was reluctant to publish this blog until we’ve finished our season here just in case we then stumbled upon an “even better” anchorage worthy of a mention! But that’s the joy of it, every place has something different to offer. We’ve covered only a tiny part of Thailand – we’ve only visited six out of the 76 Thai provinces, but we have anchored in scores of different anchorages during our time here this season. Like our van-life experiences, we haven’t felt the need to travel huge distances. Our way of travel, at a sedate pace and with no sense of urgency, has given us the chance to explore and enjoy some stunning locations.