Koh Muk, Thailand

Koh Muk...our most favourite anchorage so far in Thailand, in saying that we haven't been to many anchorages yet..oh well..next trip.  Koh Muk is famous for the Emerald Cave - or Hong as it is known locally.  A Hong is basically a beach inside the middle of an island which you can only access by a tunnel over through the water!  So great adventure was in store, we anchored there mid afternoon and after watching the zillion tourists arriving and leaving in the day tripper boats we decided to wait until the next morning and head in there early by kayak (thank you Team Sandpiper!!!)  So, we had an afternoon of swimming, exploring, kayaking and generally just mucking around in the most gorgeous bay ever.  Sheer cliffs right beside us in this stunning place, it was an awesome experience to wake up to...in fact so awesome we decided to stay another night, well at this stage anyway...could easily stay for a week!

After a beach bbq with a few cruisers that were anchored in the bay with us it was a early night (well, relatively) and then up early to get to the hong FIRST.  Well, daylight approached and passed us by and we finally dragged ourselves out of bed and decided that Blister was probably the easier way to head down to this hong as there was a bit of a swell and we were a bit tired after all...so into blister we got...and what an amazing experience it was!  We have a vid

eo on youtube of the trip through the tunnel...you can view it here, and here, then the exit here and here and several photos which you can view here.

Going through there was this incredible roar...(you have to row through you are not allowed to use an outboard)  which was a little spooky to say the least and it was total darkness (not helped by the fact we turned the wrong way at the beginning), then suddenly this amazing blue colour appeared in the water and suddenly daylight...we were through..however suddenly

 this surge came through (once again murphys law) and we were literally thrown (well nearly) on to the beach!  It is an in

credible place, one group of cruisers we know of a few weeks later had a champagne breakfast on the beach in there..what a really great idea!  Well, we had this little private beach INSIDE an island all to ourselves for nearly an hour, then suddenly we heard screams, yells, laughs, cackles and noise noise noise, echoing all the way through the tunnel...time to leave we decided the hoards have arrived!!  So back into blister to negotiate the surge a bit more successfully (not much more tho) and return the path we (brendan) had rowed, it seemed so short this time, but the roar was the same - it turns out that was the echo of the surge ... hindsight is a wonderful thing!, and then magically we were back at the entrance, but this time the colour of the water was crystal clear emerald - hence the name emerald cave!  A B S O L U T E L Y   S T U N N I N G!