Day 57, Year 4: Snorkeling in the Butang Group of Islands
Date: Thursday, December 18, 2008
Weather: Beautiful, Windy Day
Latitude: 06 degrees 31.984 minutes N
Longitude: 099 degrees 16.846 minutes E
Location: Ko Adang, Butang Island Group, Thailand
We started our day on the south side of Ko Lipe. We left our dinghy in the water overnight and somehow the dingy fuel tank got overturned and we awoke to a dinghy awash with gas mixed with oil. So effectively we had an oil spill in our dingy. Our collective minds went to work to figure out how to clean this us without getting any oil in the pristine, clear waters around us. Mark did a fantastic job of using one of our chamois cloths to soak up the mix and squeeze it into a stainless steel pot that he then poured through a funnel into a plastic jug. Then he used disposable pads to wipe up the dinghy. The final assault was to wash down the dinghy with lot of dish detergent and salt water. But the good news was that we didn’t leave an oil slick when the dinghy was pumped out. So once again life was good and we were off for a motor sail west to Ko Butang where we had a beautiful snorkeling experience. The coral and fish variety were great and the water was nice and clear. And the bonus
was the abundance of beautiful giant clams with mantles in every possible color combination that you can imagine. After snorkeling, we had lunch and then motored back east to the west coast of Ko Adang. Here we spent the late afternoon snorkeling the reef close to shore. It was not as phenomenal as the experience off Ko Butang, but we really enjoyed it.
Tomorrow we are heading north to Ko Rok Nok just southeast of Phuket. There is supposed to be clear water and good snorkeling here as well, so hopefully we will arrive in time to do a little snorkeling before the end of the day. Kevin and Claire are enjoying the beautiful weather and great snorkeling experiences. We are all disappointed that we don’t have an underwater camera. Kevin and Claire brought our underwater camera back to us, hopefully repaired. But unfortunately the underwater housing that we had ordered never arrived, so we still can’t use the camera. We will just have to use our memories.
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| 081218 Day 57 Butang Islands, Thailand–Ko Lipe, Ko Butang, Ko Adang |
