February 5, 2009 - Ko Lanta, Krabi Provence, Thailand

We started our day with one last trip to the Emerald Cave on Ko Muk. It was early in the morning, before the first load of tourists arrived, and the tide was very low. Fishermen were gathering oysters off the rocks at the mouth of the cave. We had plenty of headroom as we made our way through the tunnel into the hong. The birds nesting on the soaring cliffs around us greeted the day with a chorus of song. Emerald Cave is a very special place and I'm glad we made the effort to visit it again before heading off to our next anchorage.

On our way to Ko Lanta, we stopped for a lunchtime snorkel in the turquoise waters around Ko Ngai. The coral was brown and dingy, but there were plenty of fish, a few moray eels and even a lobster hiding among the coral.

We dropped anchor for the night in Ao Khlong Jaak, Ko Lanta, based on a write up of a beachfront restaurant in the Lonely Planet. Shortly after dropping anchor, we plugged in our wifi booster, and picked up the unexpected bonus of some free wifi coming out of one of the resorts on the beach. While I loaded pictures to the blog, Sten worked on fixing the ball valve on the discharge for our forward head, which doesn't seem to want to open. Today was one of those days when I'm really glad to be the girl!

At sunset we went ashore to try to locate the restaurant the LP had raved about. We didn't find it, but we did have a nice meal of fried spring rolls, hot and sour tom yam soup, grilled steak salad made spicy with thai bird chilies and garnished with cilantro, and pad thai (hey, I know it's cheesy, but I had to try this westernized thai classic in Thailand - and you know what? It's just as good here!), while sitting under swaying lanterns with our toes in the sand. At one point, somewhere towards the bottom of a large Singha, Sten leaned over to me, pointed at Mata'irea, and whispered with a tone of wonderment to his voice, "that's our boat over there." Most days we take the way we live for granted, but occasionally we stop to think about it, and realize just how amazing it is.