Kata Beach, Thailand

Kata Beach...tourist heaven! We pulled in and anchored and said to ourselves whilst looking at a stretch of beach COVERED in deck chairs 2 deep, umbrellas and a million bodies "well, we wont be staying here long" - famous last words those were! We wanted to catch up and say goodbye to our good friends Tom and Amy on SV Sandpiper. They were leaving in a couple of days to head off to Sri Lanka, Maldives and up the Red Sea to Turkey, so we really wanted to catch up and have a proper farewell.

Its been a long long time since we have been to such a tourist area and it was a shock to the system. Every nationality was catered for. After the first trip ashore poor Finn was in shock, the next morning he didnt want to go ashore again because "mum, there are all these old lady's in there on the beach and they are older than nanna and they are only wearing their knickers...its disgusting!" He was talking about the topless, g-string clad grandmas...and he was right - it was disgusting! As Tom, Brendan and Ben said - why couldnt it be the young 18 year olds strutting their stuff - nooo - they were all covered up, it was the grannies out flaunting it (and some of the grandad's too)!!

Never mind, we had a great time at Kata beach and ended up staying for 2 weeks - not out of choice in the end tho. Tom and Amy had some friends over from the US - Ben and Katie, so they all helped us celebrate Sophie's 11th birthday and what a birthday it was. All day on the beach, swimming, eating, drinking, new clothes and she got her hair braided/beaded!! An old friend way back from our Turkey days Alistair, came and spent the afternoon and evening with us which really added to the day. Took Sophie out for dinner and guess what traditional Thai dishes we had ... yep...PIZZA!!!!! Then we found a newly opened bar with a pool so had a great time there and finally it was time for bed...for all of us - we were knackered.

Our days at Kata followed a fairly similar routine and it was a fabulous time. But the time was drawing close where we would have to say good bye to Sandpiper, this was our first real "cruisers" good bye since we left australia and it was very sad. We bought Chiang Mai lanterns which are beautiful paper lanterns you light and send off into the sky, they are a celebration so we celebrated friendships and safe travels. As a parting gift to us, Sandpiper gave us their two kayaks as they didnt want to carry them up through the Red Sea, awesome, I think they got more use in the next 24hours than they have had for a long time!!! Thank you Sandpiper, they are still much loved and much used boat toys! Alistair took us out for a look see around the island one day and ended up at a elephant trek place so the children both went off for a ride on an elephant - we mature adults of course propped up the bar and looked out over the ocean whilst sipping on lovely cool beverages!

After Sandpiper left for the Red Sea we decided to move on to Panwa Bali around the corner and see some more good friends on Glayva. Well, we decided to go, but Sunburn had other ideas and it took a few days to get things really going, not to mention a bit of head scratching, cursing and some medicinal purpose alcohol to soothe the skippers frayed emotions! But, we finally made it to catch up with Rachel, Mark, Namara and Arran.