Koh Muk, Thailand to Langkawi, Malaysia

Well, sadly the time has come to leave the beautiful "land of smiles" Thailand and head back down to Rebak Marina, Langkawi, Malaysia.  It was a quick trip to Thailand for only a month to say farewell to our friends Tom and Amy on SV Sandpiper, before we leave Sunburn in Rebak Marina whilst we have a quick trip back to New Zealand for my Mum's 70th birthday, and to see my new niece who had just turned one, and to catch up with family and friends.  Its only for a month, and then when we come back, who knows what the plans we dont have will bring!  

We left Koh Muk (our most favourite anchorage in Thailand so far) in the company of Amoneitas - David and Di, and sailed or rather tried to sail down to Koh Phetra for the night.  As usual their was very little wind so we had the good old iron sail pumping out diesal fumes at a great rate of knots!  Arriving at Koh Phetra we were beginning to wonder if we would be able to anchor at all, we were getting closer, and closer and closer to the cliff faces and were still in about 20 metres of water then just before we were about to turn and head out again we found a somewhat "shallow" patch of 12 metres so dropped the pick and set about getting good old Blister (our dinghy) into the water for a bit of a explore around all the nooks and crannies these amazing islands offer.  After watching a longtail disappear into somewhere dark and mysterious we decided to follow suit...and didnt get very far - not sure exactly what he was showing the people on board but we didnt get far before we came to a dead end! However we did manage to find some amazing little caverns and tunnels that the ebb and flow of the ocean had carved out of these great hunks of rock!  

Back to Sunburn for some quiet time after all that exertion of cruising around in a dinghy WITH an outboard, just in time to watch a lone dolphin swim past us...amazing that he hadnt been caught in the myriad of nets we had encountered on the way down the coast of thailand!  In fact, its amazing there are actually any fish at all in these waters!  

Well the morning sun shone bright and early and we were going to aim to either Koh Kraden or actually get all the way to Telaga Harbour, Langkawi...we decided to wing it and see how we were going time wise, sailing wise, children wise, sanity wise ... not to mention engine wise!!!!  After a rather uneventful trip, of course with any wind we had ON THE NOSE (murphys law) we decided to carry on and get to Langkawi as we had a lot to do before we caught the plane back to good old NZ.