Day 81 16th feb
The decisions been made that today we are going to hire the kayak that's been sat out on the sand since we arrived, and take the advise of a guy we met on the first night to travel into the mangrove river, so after a fruit and muesli start that's exactly what we do...
The weather, although always sunny has been getting progressively windier since our arrival, but thankfully today it's dropped a little.. This however does not mean that the sea has become totally flat, and whilst the pair of us are precariously bobbing up and down on the water, whilst sat on a kayak that's made for one, the waves feel twice as big as they looked from the beach and I feel an undignified capsize is imminent, but Lady Luck must of been on our side as we managed to negotiate the 300 meters of sea, with its sideways waves, two mored up long boats and the bridge as we make it to the mangrove area with dignity still intact...
The waves are still present river side of the bridge and still manage to cause us cause for concern.... They may only be a foot high now, but play havoc whilst we try to navigate our we around the mangrove trees, but it's all part of the fun.....
The river has a sand bottom for as are as we travel, and the water is completely clear.... We follow the river as it twists and turns its way inland..... We're also able to get a very good look around the expensive bungalow complex from the river and they look lovely..... The have all the fittings of a modern hotel, whilst perched on wooden stilts two foot over a river, within a mangrove forest....
We soon pass the last building and we are into what feels like uncharted waters.... The tides in, allowing us to pass through openings which would normally be closed off at low tide, large tangled wooden nets of mangrove roots rub the underside of the kayak as we progress further in.... It's a nice unaltered peaceful place to be... A fisherman's dream....
Having travelled for as far as we wish to go we turn around in a wider section of river and head back... We are in to hurry and just take our time... There are trees everywhere, and they grow right out the middle of the river so your unable to see more than about 40 foot up the river in front of you at anyone time, so getting lost could be easy.... As we pass close buy to a large tree a stop the familiar silhouette of a crab.... It's motionless on a piece of root that's around two meters long that's above the water level.... We slowly paddle closer to try and take a photo and notice more.... Many more... They obviously like to sunbath in the morning heat and we are able to get quite close before they scurry away.....
We return to the big bridge and Shiree abandons ship in favour of walking the short distance back to our bungalow whilst a paddle under the bridge and back into the chopper sea with the kayak.... Understandably, it behaves much better with just me on it and the waves present to issue on the way back.... We'd been gone almost exactly an hour, and it was nice to of gotten up and done something different....
It's dinner time by the time we are back and all sorted so we head to the restaurant area for a club sandwich and a traditional Thai curry dish...
Once its arrived and we near finishing we hear an uproar from the kitchen.... Its a Burmese family that work the kitchen so we can't make any sense at all of what's happening, just James, the guy who runs the complex goes off to investigate and propyl returns announcing the closure of the kitchen due to " personal complications"
I guess even in paradise there can sometimes be to much heat in the kitchen....
We spend the next few hours sunbathing on the beach, chatting and blog writing until around 16.00 when I notice that the tide has receded much further than in the past few days... Then the penny drops.... It was a full moon yesterday so I figure its a spring tide... With more beach revealed than normal I'm up from the hammock and off for a walk in seldom seen sand on the hunt for shells.....
The closer I get to the bridge area the more the sands Ben exposed and the sea bust be 150ft further out than it normal is in this area... The beach area loosely begins to resemble a Cornish beach, only without the rain....
I was joined by most of the dogs that live within the bungalow complex, but by the time I've walked 200 meters away there's only one that remains.... That is until it shops some fish in the shower waters and it's off like a rocket.... The fish are barely visible, so from a distance the dog must look like it's going mental, but I can see what it's after, even if know body else can...
I manage to find an extensive collection of very exotic looking shells so its just a matter of checking to see if any are currently lived in before selecting the best and packing them carefully away for export to a front garden in Saxon way - England.
Come early evening, having had a lovely warm shower we find ourselves sat around the bar with the older American couple - Steve & Pat. There really lovely and are clearly not letting there age stop them from doing anything.... After a lengthy chat they have to leave for a restaurant reservation at a place called "Oscars"
We'd been shown Oscars on the first night, but it had always been closed when we'd revisited... Oscars advertises a set meal for the night, but doesn't open its doors until 12 people have booked to attend, once the 12 seats are accounted for no more bookings are taken.... But... We'd been informed by Richard, the guy who'd shown us around the first night that there's usually a couple of meals cooked extra just in case, so it's decided that we'll join the americans on the walk in and keep our fingers crossed that this is the case..... Nick, the guy who advised us to travel the river is there when we arrive, and Richard was correct.. There are extra meals in the pot, but unfortunately somebody else has already got them, so we head off to find food elsewhere... Everyone who is eating at Oscars does so around one large table, and we could see straight away in arrival that space was tight so it came as no real surprise that we could not be accommodated...
We find a nice little restaurant around the corner and enjoy a nice meal before returning to the bar area within our own bungalow complex and upon our arrival we see that Steve & Pat had also returned straight after eating so we rejoin them and continue chatting..
As it turns out they have a orchard with 28 apple trees and enjoy the art of making cider.... As do the village with they live in, they produce 500 gallons of cider a year and they distil a good quantity to produce a cider spirt, so cider, and it's production becomes the topic of conversation for the rest of the evening....