Accordingly, four stalwarts set out from Khram Marine at 07:00 hours with some fears and trepidation in gloomy conditions and dark cloudy skies on the horizon. The outward journey was satisfactory with relatively small waves but on heading past the last island into open seas, we encountered heavy swells of around 3 meters. Nevertheless, we continued on and 20 minutes later braced ourselves against the waves and started fishing.
At once we started pulling up fish nonstop, pausing only when the captain had to relocate the boat which was drifting quite rapidly in the conditions. This continued for some 3½ hours until the wind and the swells increased considerably and the captain wisely moved to the leeward side of one of the islands. Remarkably, the fish were still plentiful and we were kept busy until around when 16:00 hours when storm clouds were seen brewing on the horizon and we were prudent in heading for home some 30 minutes earlier than usual. Again, we were lucky in docking back at Khram before the rain started.
There are no photos this trip for 2 reasons; one, there were no large fish caught and two, I was too busy catching fish to take any pictures. Dang, assisted slightly by Solly, took home an estimated catch or 12 plus kilos. My catch, assisted greatly by the captain, came in at just under 15 kilos (after scaling, gutting etc.) and Jeff had a respectable catch estimated at 7-8 kilos. The majority of fish caught were pla-dang averaging around 5 or 6 to the kilo – beautiful eating.
The captain and deckhand are to be complemented on cleaning all our fish and packing them on ice for our trip home for the modest fee of 100 Baht for person. Damn good value!
Next trip on Saturday 4 August is fully booked but there are vacancies on scheduled trips 9, 18, and 23 August. Tel 081 862 6279 for booking.
