Phang Na Bay is a large bay to the north and east of Phuket. The large somewhat shallow bay is studded with islands that are 'karst formations' - limestone islands that rise often vertically out of the sea. A wonderous sight and very much a visual highlight in our journey.
At our first anchorage at Ko Phanak there is a Hong that is accessed by going through a cave for 50 metres or so. With a rising tide we rowed into the cave and switched on our torch as light from the entrance faded. As we moved along a green tinge of light on the water grew, showing the light coming from the Hong. The cave finished and a small airspace of a few inches could be seen with the daylight in the distance. Jumping into the water I (Col) ducked down and swam through a two metre long and metre wide passage to surface in the brilliant sunshine and a huge 25 metre round lagoon with shear rainforest lined cliffs rising hundreds of metres skyward. Just a fantastic to swim out of the dark cave into this sight.
Liz & the girls followed and I revelled in watching their expressions as they surfaced and took in the vista. The tide rose to close the air space and one of us stay at the cave entrance so we could find our way back. Really good stuff!
From Ko Phanak we made a lunch stop at another Hong which was much easier to enter but still very beautiful and here we watched large numbers of day visitors being paddled through the Hong on kayaks with a reclining seats so the visitors can lay back and relax while touring around. Many hundreds of people make a day trip out to Phang Na bay - and rightly so!
The big attraction in the area is the island known as 'James Bond' island as the film the "The Man with the Golden Gun" had scenes filmed there. We anchored a mile or so away for the night and watched the sun set and lit up the islands around us in a spectacular way.
Next morning we moved close to James Bond island and went ashore before the influx of tourist. Everyone that goes on a Phang Na bay tour ends up here and they say it can be literally standing room only on the small island. Our early morning saw us well outnumbered by souvenier stall owners - luckilly they let us get away with just buying an ice cream. But once again the attraction, while it's a bit overrun by the tourism process, was worth a look.Time was against us with our visa running out soon so it was back to Ao Chalong to check out and head down to Langkawi. The intention was to go via Phi Phi Island but this turned out to be a dumb idea as the wind was right on the nose. After punching into six miles of sloppy sea we anchored behind an island for the night and then decided to just overnight straight to Tulaga Harbour on Langkawi. This turned out pretty good as we had strong winds but at a good angle and had a reasonable trip.
The trip back to somewhere you've been before is always much easier as the pressure on working out the right approach and quite often we have our previous track stored in our navigation software. Going into Tulaga harbour for the night we treated ourselves to KFC for dinner. The next day I went to the new immigration/customs/ports offices to check into Malaysia but was only able to do half the job as there was not Ports officer. Apparently they opened the office with much pomp and ceremony a few weeks before and when the first boat checked in they 'clicked' that the Ports administration hadn't allocated someone to work there. Hmmm...We met up with Don & Jean off Katrine and were told there quite harrowing tale of dragging anchor back onto a reef and only just being able to get the boat away when the wind shifted for a few minutes. Luckily this doesn't happen very often and they admitted that it was a bad place to anchor and though 'it'd be okay just for one night'.
After stocking up on beer, chocolates and Nutella we checked out and then rounded Langkawi to go into the 'Hole in the Wall'. This is a long narrow passage, almost fjord-like on the north eastern corner of the island. While you can take the boat straight up in there, we were told that is nice to anchor in the harbour around the corner and then head up a side river by dinghy. The river is connected to the Hole ain Wall area by a man made cut through.
This was a top idea. We enjoyed a beautiful anchorage in the bay and then spent all day in the dinghy going up the river, through the cuttings and into a cave in the dinghy. The new motor performed faultlessly. A short walk down the road from the main jetty at the Hole in The Wall is a gallery dedicated to the recently retired Prime Minister - Dr Mahatir. It is a 'glorious monument to their glorious leader' - I'm sure that must be written. The main collection of the gallery are all the gifts to Dr Mahatir from other countries, companies and individuals seeking favour or good will. All that said it was worth a look.
