sea legs and sailor swagger

there's no better way to explore the glorious beaches and islands of southern thailand than aboard a sailboat. for our three week tour we decided to go with a 40 foot sloop by the name of juno captained by the legendary tom.

limestone cliffs meet crystal clear waters in our playground of the andaman sea

meet juno...

and tom... the better looking of the three stooges.. pictured here headed for a swim-through cave with a hidden entrance which opens up into the photo below after an 100 meter paddle the minute you get in here you know that if you were a pirate... this is where your treasure would be hidden

the anchor chain took far more showers than we did

little disconcerting when you can see the bottom standing way up on junos first spreader until you remember that the visibility of the water is about 60 feet

ed in flight
blowing out the candle on our homemade coconut chocolate cheesecake.. happy 24 ed
a thai style hot air balloon with barely enough lift to get a gecko off the ground but a pleasure to watch glowing as it reaches for the stars

natural water slide with a view of the malaysian coast

the happy faces of two hardened seamen. in truth though, life on juno proved to be anything but hard. endless cooking supplies and free reign over the kitchen and our travel plans made for three weeks of sailing bliss. we did have some duties onboard juno, the most important of which was keeping the beer cold and one in tom's hand at all times.


exploring some mangroves and caves aboard juno junior


stressed out

this one's got nothing on juno

i think this is a yoga pose.. the warrior maybe
we went over to this squid boat (one of thousands on the thai coast) to try and buy some squid.. there were about thirty guys smiling at us as we danced and hand signaled our way to friendship with the crew. the capt saluted us and sent us off with a huge bag of delicious freshly caught squid... for free. we seem happy
squid cleaning with rob the canadian.. this went on for about an hour

soon to be barracuda style fish and chips. this little guy also happened to be the culmination of a 14 month old bet - a scaley slap to the face.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kXLOD409AGc

snorkeling shenanigans

eds monkey toes... and bunk
jeremy in bucket-induced sleep in the cockpit


eds colon's gift to the sea.. after 6 days of work

the dazzling juno in the distance just off the coast of the similan islands... one of the worlds most famous dive spots with visibility of about 60 feet.. maybe more. happy trails and sails to tom, rob and juno on the journey eastward to africa. hope you enjoy as many good times as we shared during our time aboard. and never cease the quest for that elusive red-crowned double-breasted mattress thrasher. cheers capn'!

here starts a streak of southeast asian shenanigans

the boys are back in action in thailand and firing on all cylinders!

one of our favorite ways to get around, hitch hiking's a breeze in thailand. we think this sign says the name of our destination but it could say, "crazy white homeless people!"

yipee!

those ain't seaguls perched on that thur rock. we took a swim to this little outcropping for some cliff diving with our canadian companions. uuunagi.

wow! is this real? yes boys, you're in thailand

sunset on the beach

spent a few days getting off the the heavily-trafficked tourist trail and the roads with our mopeds for a few days. just couldn't resist bombing up and down some deserted beaches along the way. nice pink helmet, ed.

a special thanks to nannikins for the roof

i don't know

holy grapefruit!

giant monkey men hold up traffic in this thai town. no feces flinging here.

this looks tranquil but the local longtail boats sound like military helicopters with broken mufflers.

look carefully at this photo. notice the four bottles of sunscreen. the application instructions must have been in thai.

our little tasty thai food sign attracted a large crowd into our friend's lovely restaurant. and got us a free meal

jer getting a lesson in thai bonfire construction from our friend alif. that's gonna be a big one

early morning karaoke shananigans

our killer kamping spot after a long day of kayaking. we found the only spot of beach that stayed dry during high tide on this itsy bitsy island

couldn't stand the obnoxious roar of the longtail boats so we decided to explore some little dots on our map under our own power. a 20 minute paddle according to our thai rental agent turned into 3 hours of paddling through 4 foot swell on the way home. but the waypoints in between were sweet as! there are only a few ways left to escape the tourist trail in thailand. this is one of them.

these local fisherman got caught in the swell that we somehow managed to paddle through in our 12 foot kayak and had to spend the night camped on the beach with us. conversation was a bit limited by the contents of our phrasebook: you like movies? music? food? boats? you catch fish? no? ah, damn, i'm hungry. they made us a great fire to cook on before they left in the morning. happy netting fishing buddies.

it's not a komodo, but this dragon was a monster!

another paradise found by kayak.

loco

this longtail is powered by a hemi

our holiday home. it was tough to relax with all the crazy christmas commercialism around here, but somehow we managed.

the only road on ko phayam.

chalk full of food and booze for the thousands of new year and full moon party pilgrims

it's tough to stand out in a crowd of 12,000 people on a beach. unless you're zeus and poseidon and have descended upon ko phangan from mt. olympus! they appeared on two occasions and will probably pop up on the internet in several other locations either being ridiculous or passed out spooning with empty buckets. these togas started out white and smelling of sweet greek herbs and ended as booze and beach saturated rags.

these lovely ladies took pity on us, being homeless and wearing rags, and provided us with shelter, air conditioning and cooking lessons.

our culinary coach, eeeeed (not sure that's the correct spelling of her name) helping us to add some thai taste to our repertoire

gourmet ferry cooking.

thailand has many delicacies: pad thai, green coconut curry, fried grasshopper, fried larvae, fried beetle....

mmm, tastes like grasshopper!