We met at a tour office at 9.30am this morning for a boat trip. We booked it last night, and it's a full day visiting a few islands and beaches with some snorkelling, setting off at 10am and coming back at about 6pm.

It started off really overcast, but we could still feel the sun. But by the time we got to the beach, the sun was really trying to get through and we could see proper sunlight...there were even shadows...! Ooooooh!
There were about 14 of us on a longtail boat - that's not a big fancy boat, that's a traditional type wooden boat. Our first stop was Shark Point which wasn't far. When we pulled up, one of the crew sat and threw bread for the fish...LOADS of bright colored fish surfaced! I got in to have a look as soon as I could and it was amazing. So many bright coloured fish and lots of different types. I recognised the Angel Fish, but not sure what the others are called. It was by far the best snorkelling I've ever done. There wasn't any bright coral, but loads of fish still. One of the little sods took a little nibble of my back - think it was my little mole...
And yes, there really are sharks, but we didn't see any. They're only reef sharks so don't attack, fortunately. One guy we were talking to had been up here snorkelling yesterday and saw 5! He said they were about 4 feet long!! He saw another one while he was out today, but he was snorkelling in a different part to me.

We jumped back on board and passed a couple of beautiful areas and then arrived at Bamboo Island. Absolutely lovely beach with white soft sand and blue waters. It's a shame that it's not clear blue skies with the sun blazing! It still looked amazing, but with better weather it would have looked absolutely stunning. Damn the weather.
We stayed on there for an hour and had a bit of lunch on there - chicken fried rice. Quite nice actually. Nice long walk on the beach and did a bit of snorkelling too.

We cruised along to our next port, passing some lovely little secluded beaches - would love to have a private speed boat and cruise out here...
Monkey beach! We had to snorkel over from the boat - lots more colourful fish to see. And then little monkeys on the beach. People were buying fruit from a little hut and giving it to them. We love watching monkeys, they're so funny!

One old guy had a bag if bananas. He took one out of the bag and hid the rest up his jumper. He threw the banana to the monkey and it just looked at it, threw it down ad started chasing the guy!! He had to get all the bananas from under his jumper and throw them!! They're not daft.

Then another guy had bought himself a corn on the cob. Another monkey spotted him and chased him too so he had to throw it to the monkey. The monkey ran off with it and sat on top of these rocks, munching away. The little thing seemed to absolutely love it - it's just funny to watch how human like they are.

The funniest had to be two monkeys who were sat drinking cans of strawberry Fanta!! They were just sat on their own and then loads of people saw them sipping away - proper holding it with two hands and pouring it down their neck! One of them had a strawberry red beard.

I could have sat there all day, but we had another 15 minutes left so I went for a snorkel while Therese got a lift back on the kayak with our bag and camera. Really good snorkelling spot and some more different fish to see. At one point there was hundreds of fish swarming around me. Think one of the crew had thrown some bread so they were everywhere.

We were on board again passing different areas of islands with turquoise blue waters and little beaches, and slowly arrived up to Koh Phi Phi Leh, which is the island from the film The Beach. I recognised it actually! There was a nice little bay we passed and the Viking Cave, then we arrived at a little area where quite a few boats were anchored. It's a really nice spot with clear waters and is surrounded by limestone cliff-faces.

We had to make our way across to this wooden staircase that's supported by loads of ropes. Was hard work getting to the stairs. I snorkelled across with my flippers, but there's loads of big solid coral rocks in the shallow area which are really hard to walk across bare footed. Therese had her flip flops rather than flippers! We both got a few cuts getting up there though. Anyway, we made it up the stairs and walked though a jungley type area along a sand trail, and then through the opening we came to one of the most beautiful views we've seen - Maya Bay, as seen on The Beach! It's a huge secluded area - pretty big beach, for a small island, with big limestone cliffs either side going out to sea. The sand was so soft it was like flour, and the waters were crystal clear with turquoise parts. Absolutely picturesque! Exactly what you'd expect from a tropical island. It gets quite busy on there with tourists with it being such a famous place from the film, but it wasn't so bad when we were there. We had about an hour on there walking around taking pictures and just admiring the scenery.

We had a fantastic day today! The weather could have been better, but everything still looked beautiful and we both really caught the sun still. And the snorkelling was brilliant too.

It was about 6.30pm by the time we got back and we were starving as we hadn't eaten since about 1pm! We found a deal at this Scandinavian place - chicken skewer with baked potato and a mini salad buffet bar for 220 Baht (£4.40). We couldn't even be bothered to go back and get showered etc so just went straight for that. Was a nice meal and we really filled our bellies...really took advantage of the buffet salad!

It's the King of Thailand's birthday today and nobody is allowed to serve alcohol! Although the restaurant did serve us beer, but in a coffee cup...
It's a good excuse for a detox night though, so we had a quiet one again - got showered etc and went out for a wander. It was weird to see all the bars closed that were absolutely packed last night. At least we should get a good nights sleep seeing as the bars are closed on the beach so there's no banging music!