The boats are an open dow type powered by the very strange looking but effective petrol engine with the propeller at the end of a very long shaft. The tide was out so the first challenge was to get Kim on to the boat with out losing her over the side. That done we headed for the island about 15 minutes away. Arriving at the island was a bit of a disappointment – instead of the lovely beach with food shacks that we expected there was one small hut on a beach? That was little more than a swamp. But wait, we were told to follow one man (via gestures)up a track into the jungle, obviously the beach was on the other side of the island. After a ten minute easy walk we arrived at the beach that was a bit more like we thought it would be, although I think we are spoilt for beaches this one was fairly narrow with coarse dark sand and lots of rubbish.
There was however beach chairs to relax on, the water was warm and the food good. Managed to chill out for the day without any problems at all.
At 3.00 we headed back to the other side for the return boat journey. The wind had picked up during the day so as we left the shelter of the island copped the first of many waves over the side. This wasn’t too bad at first as the water was warm but as we headed further out we were getting drenched regularly. Whist the drenchings weren’t too bad the movement of the boat was a little scary. As we were side on to the waves the boat was rocking fairly violently with at times only a couple of centimeters of freeboard. It was about this time that Kim started praying, crying and yelling at me to do something about it. There not being a real lot I could do (I was not going to let go of the side of the boat) I basically told her to hang on and don’t worry, whilst at the same time trying to work out if I could reach for a life jacket without letting go of the boat.
About 15 minutes of this and we were back on dry land, dripping wet. Boun was there to meet us and take us back to the Veranda. After a swim we headed again to the Crab Market for dinner. Chose much better tonight and had a great dinner and a few drinks. It was very quiet with very few tourists – obviously it is the quiet season and the number of people around at the weekend were probably ex-pats from PP.
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