Charlie and his angels

We went on a fantastic day trip whilst staying on Phuket. Part of it on a large boat and the rest in sea canoes. We visited the 'famous' James Bond Island...I say famous in quotations because before coming here I never knew that such an island existed! Anyway it's the one in The man with the golden gun and well worth seeing.
We paid quite a lot for the trip...well in backpacker terms we did! It was £20 for the day- starting at 7.30 am and finishing 12 hours later! We got lucky and the sun was shining as we boarded the boat... we were then handed free fruit and told all drinks were free ( soft ones of course)! We got lots of smiles from the Thai staff (all male) when boarding, rather more than the Russian and French families who were our company for the day! Once we left the port one of said smilers presented me with a rose he had made out of a reed and introduced himself as Charlie haha! Soon after, we stopped at our first island to go canoeing..or so I thought! We had to do very little as there was a guide per canoe that did all the rowing for us! And you'll never guess what- ours was Charlie, he specifically beckoned us over to his canoe much to the amusement of the other staff! From then on it became a running joke that we had to have Charlie and the crew would walk past saying "oooo Charlie" at every opportunity...highly embarrassing but funny all the same! So at every stop for canoeing we would get Charlies canoe and on the 3rd stop we were egged on to go and wake him up from sleeping under a table just to take us! I think it was supposed to be his break! The whole crew were hilarious and the best bunch of Thais we have met yet! Very friendly but unfortunately for them neither of us find Thai men the least bit attractive!
The scenery was amazing with chances to canoe through a bat cave and through a passageway under an island to a lagoon! We also got an amazing buffet lunch, dance show on board and the chance to roast ourselves on the deck at the front of the boat!
As we walked away from the boat at the end of the day very happy that we'd done the trip we passed a stand selling professional photos of us in the canoes, we ignored it as usual and walked to our minibus. Then out of nowhere Charlie came running up behind us and handed us a photo each that he'd manage to pinch out of the frames for us- Bonus!!