Written by Belinda and Hamish.

Belinda.

The Buffet Breakfast did not disappoint, although Hamish said he’s had better. Where? we asked, Legoland, Malaysia he tells us as a matter of fact. At this point Rod and I realise we have a very spoiled 12 year old on our hands. Spoiled or well travelled, you choose.

Our mini bus picks us up at 0830-ish and a young Australian couple are going on the day trip too. There’s about a ten minute fast drive to the tour office, where we check in and are given blue wrist bands. Elle the senior guide (potentially her name is Al but we’re not 100% sure) gives us a very entertaining pre-brief/safety brief. She has a tattooed calf and is pretty cool. She unnecessarily apologises for her ‘not very good’ English, but jeez, I still can’t say hello (Sawasdee) or thank you (Khop khun) in Thai – her English is excellent. We walk to the departure area as a biggish group and are split up in half. There are 2 speedboats to take us to the Islands. May I just add here, that my new favourite way to travel is by speedboat with 3 x 250HP outboards and a full crew.

As we walk along the beach and head to the boats young man is taking photo’s – I’m sure it’s for souvenirs and am keen for him to get a photo of the 3 of us. Like most things I’ve been noticing in the last couple of days, he is taking these photos at rapid speed. I am not entirely sure he IS taking photo’s it’s happening so quickly. He takes a candid photo of Rod and I make eye contact with him so he notices the 3 of us. We get our photo taken and forget about it until the end of the day.

Next part by Hamish.

I sat next to Mum and Dad sat alone at the back. It was hot until the boat started to speed up – then we were cool. I started feeling sick – Mum said to tell her if I was feeling sick but I didn’t tell her. The view from the boat was lovely, we could see out the front and both sides. The trip takes about 30 minutes and it was fun and fast! The Skipper kept finding more and more gears! We arrived at our first destination: Racha Yai Island. We swam and Dad bought us a fruit shake to share which was kinda like a fruity smoothy without milk. It was beautiful.

Oops, I forgot to mention the very wobbly floating jetty. The speedboat pulls up alongside it and we walk, as though in an earthquake, about 100m to the beach.

Then we came to our second destination; Elle had said we could stay at the beach or go snorkeling from the boat, just down the coast. We chose option B – snorkeling. And boy, was it beautiful. I do not regret it. We saw all sorts of pretty fish, like X ray fish and Dory (Parrot) fish. And dad even saw a feisty sea snake at one point. I saw the sea snake’s sad cousin, the sea slug. There were also clams, coral starfish and sponges.

Then we went to our third and final stop – Coral Island. Here we had lunch; believe it or not, another buffet. Swimming, dried off, went swimming, dried off, had an ice cream. Mum dropped hers in the sand and refused to rinse it off in the sea. What a waste. Went swimming, dried off before parasailing. (Go watch our Tik Tok, on Facebook, to see more.)

That’s me done! (HD)

OK, back to Belinda.

We’ve had a fab day, we’re writing this up at dinner tonight, but I feel like I’m still on the boat! Tomorrow will be a slow day around the resort, walk into town and make some plans for the next few days.

Oh, the souvenir photo? We bought both photos for the total cost of 200 THB ($10 AUD). Rod’s candid photo has Hamish in the background (and someone standing right behind him) – Rod perhaps not quite comfortable/ready for the photo. The photo of the 3 of us I reckon is pretty good. The little sandy outline of the frame with painted shell is quite kitsch, but we love it because of this. I am impressed with the young entrepreneur. The Australian couple buy theirs too – she doesn’t even have her eyes open in their photo so I think we are lucky.