Today we went on a boat trip from Koh Lanta to some beautiful islands called Koh Ha, meaning “Five Islands” in Thai. We hired a private boat, called a long tail, from the beach and headed out on the Andaman Sea. It was an old wooden boat with a huge engine and a odd metal propellor shaft that was about 10 foot long that stuck out of the back of the boat, like a “long tail”. The engine that drove it sat on the back of the boat and looked like it had been borrowed from an old lorry; the set up was so loud we couldn’t hear anything else. 

It was meant to be a one and a half hour journey but when we thought we had travelled about half way we heard a loud noise from the engine, a piece of metal flew off and suddenly it went it silent and left us slowly drifting in the middle of the sea. It took about 20 minutes for the captain to realise that his efforts with spanners and strength couldn’t fix it so they let the anchor down and he called a mate to ask him if he could bring some spare parts. It took another 30 minutes for his friend to turn up and yet another 20 before we had the anchor up and were sailing, not so smoothly, towards the islands. 

When we arrived we sailed around to the back of all the islands and jumped in for our first snorkel. The water was beautiful. I have never seen water so clear and blue. The fish were stunning and there were hundreds of them. The coral was fabulously vibrant and in all different shapes and sizes. Near where we were snorkelling there was a cave, so Dad and I swam into it. Once we were in there it was amazing to look back out and see the way the light twinkled into the water. 

We climbed back up the rusty overhanging steps onto the boat and had some pineapple and banana for a snack while Summer was still swimming. When we got to the tough core of the pineapple we chucked it overboard and hundreds of fish sprinted from all areas towards it. They looked like piranhas attacking their prey. It was funny, because Summer didn’t see us throw the pineapple in so she thought all the fish were swimming towards her to attack her, and started screaming through her snorkel and trying to swim away!

After that we went round to another spot where we saw the best coral I have ever seen. It was interesting because on one side of the boat it was amazing shallow coral, with big heads that I thought looked like huge brains. On the other side, there was sand and scattered coral that dropped down incredibly deep and despite the crystal clear water, the bottom of the ocean disappeared from view. We stayed there for a bit and I fed some fish from my hand before going to our penultimate stop for lunch. 

When we came around the corner of the island I couldn’t really believe what I was seeing. There was bright turquoise water and a beautiful white sandy beach with amazing coral between. It felt like we were in paradise. Paul and I jumped straight in and the current quickly swept us over the coral giving us an effortless viewing of the array of fish as vibrant as a bunch of fresh flowers yet as camouflaged as a snake in dry leaves. We floated for about 20 minutes before climbing back into the boat for some chicken and rice. 
Once our dinner had gone down we all swam to the beach. When we got there we explored the caves and admired the coral that had been washed ashore. We then swam back to the boat stopping to wonder at the sea life below. The guide said that was the last stop but dad persuaded him to take us to a tunnel in the rocks that we could see across the bay. 

When we were swimming towards the tunnel a school of hundreds of bright blue fish came darting past us. I was half expecting a huge tiger sharks to come round the corner chasing after them. The tunnel was very shallow and sharp and the roof was less than a meter high so it made for a skilful swim to pass through it. 

We then swam back to the boat and headed home. Fortunately, on the way back we didn’t have any unexpected breaks to peacefully float in the middle of the sea. Overall we all really enjoyed a magically experience and it’s definitely going down as one of my favourite days of our journey so far.