Snorkel Day Trip In Koh Lanta

Great great day today. This was the coolest day trip that we booked. We booked a full day snorkel tour with Opal Speedboats and got to go to 4 different spots today. We are officially water logged! We’ve been in the sea so much the last few days and it’s time to go back to the busy cities tomorrow. But what a great way to spend our last island day.

We were picked up right on the beach this morning in this huge fancy speed boat. About 6 or 7 guys worked on it and they were all so happy and smiley the whole day, great crew. We stopped at a second hotel and picked up a nice couple. Is this real life? Do we basically have this entire boat to ourselves the whole day? Pffff not in Thailand… Next stop we picked up about 40 Chinese tourists who had never seen a boat before, so it appeared. How many pictures of a speedboat do you need? 100 apparently. They were asked to sit down multiple times, even in Chinese, but no. They don’t care and stand the whole time and then look angry when the boat hits a big wave and makes them lose their balance. Anyways, we got over it and decided to just enjoy our time and snorkel far away from them all. It was so funny, though.

First stop was Koh Rok. We got our flippers and masks on and dove right in. Holy moly, the fish were so colourful and the coral was beautiful! I saw so many fish I’ve never seen before. Some of them were super big. My favourite thing was the purple starfish. We probably spent an hour here. We headed back to the boat and apparently they were all waiting for me and dad to come back for who knows how long. We could have stayed down there forever! Let me just say that most of these pictures are screenshots of Go Pro videos so the quality is not all there. Im actually really disappointed that you can’t see how beautiful it was. The camera gave the clear blue water a green tinge from the sunshine and the bright beautiful colours of the fish are difficult to see. I really wish we brought the underwater camera.

Our second stop was only 5 minutes away. The guide said this one was better than the first spot but we disagreed. Sadly, the Go Pro battery died here so we lost our ability to take video and only got a few pictures after this. We forgot our underwater camera back at the hotel. We got really good footage in our hour long adventure at the first stop though and every other stop we saw the same types of fish.

Next we went to the beach on Koh Rok and had a buffet lunch which was yummy. We had over an hour here to relax. We swam for a bit and even right by the shore here fish were swimming right beside us. The water is the clearest we have both ever seen. We met up with 6 people who actually camped on this island last night!!! If we would have known that was a thing to do, we totally would have done it. Imagine sleeping on a private island in Thailand. If we ever come back here that is high on the list for sure. These 6 people joined our boat and we now had 49 passengers on board!

On our way to the last snorkelling spot the boat stopped suddenly and the crew started yelling “DOLPHINS!! DOLPHINS!!!”. A huge group of dolphins was swimming right beside the boat. The guide said this is a very rare thing to see and you could tell because all of them were SO excited. We sat and watched them for a bit and as we drove away we saw one do a huge jump through the air!! I was like a little kid, it was the first time I’ve seen wild dolphins. I used the very last of the camera battery to get 2 pictures. I zoomed in on them so you will believe me! 🙂

After that excitement we headed to the last location for snorkelling, Ko Ha (Five Island). It is literally 5 limestone cliffs grouped together in the middle of the sea. And this is the best snorkelling location according to the guide. I’m so sorry we didn’t have the Go Pro here but it was very similar to the first stop. It was basically just deeper and more open compared to the other ones. We did see the biggest fish here and many more starfishes. I was getting a headache from having my mask on all day so I headed back to the boat while dad kept exploring. I had a nice chat with one of the guides and a guy from Germany and a girl from Italy. It’s always so fun swapping trip stories and itinerary plans. It’s funny how at the beginning of our trip it was all where we were going and we didn’t know what to expect. Now here I am giving advice about Hanoi and how to cross the crazy streets through the traffic. It just shows how much experience and great memories we have gained this month. I’m so happy about that.

We all climbed aboard and got back to the hotels and dropped the huge group off. The last little ride back to our hotel, one of the guides brought me to sit in the very front of the boat with him. It was so fun just gliding over the waves and feeling the breeze off the sea. He showed me a bunch of other islands on the way and talked about his one month old daughter. Very cute! 🙂

We arrived at our beach and thanked the guys who were still smiling and laughing since this morning. If you are ever in Koh Lanta please use Opal Speed Boat Tours for a day trip, you won’t be sorry!

We went for a swim and showers right away to wash all the salt water off. It’s so sticky!

We headed to town for supper to a place I found on Trip Advisor called The Kitchen. We rode a Hello Kitty tuktuk there. It’s really cool that it’s mostly women who drive the tuktuks here and we haven’t seen that anywhere else.

We walked back through the market and dad found a shirt. I was on the hunt for a t-shirt for Andrew but I can’t find the one I’m looking for. I will look in Phuket tomorrow! Tomorrow we are taking a long ferry ride back to Phuket.

The long journey home is starting and I don’t want this trip to end!! I think I’ll just move to Koh Lanta and drive tuktuk for a living with the ladies here.

Thanks for reading!

Xoxo Hales