7 Islands and Night Biolumenesence 

We got to sleep in after a few early mornings. We had arranged for another speedboat transport to the 7 Island Tour with the capstone being snorkeling among bioluminescent plankton at night. This is what I was most looking forward to. 

We visited several islands, including a cruise past Chicken Island which named for a rocky outcropping the locals think looks like a chicken; however, we thought turkey was a better description. Due to high seas, we were unable to visit Maya Island, the secret hideaway of the assassin, Scalamanga, from the James Bond “Man with the Golden Gun.” We visited several other island beaches where most of the passengers went snorkeling or strolling on the beach. Don joined the beachcombers with plenty of time to take pictures, while I again relaxed on the boat. 

We arrived at Phranang Beach where we took an almost 2 km (1 mi) walk down the pier to get to shore and along unmarked trails and pathways through the resort to reach the restaurant which would serve our dinner. Rain began falling during our walk and turned into a tropical deluge just as we arrived at the buffet that was laid out for our guides to serve. We had an enjoyable meal of Thai barbeque before braving the trek back to the beach and out to our speedboat. 

After dinner we went to the plankton area and our guide turned off all the boats’ lights and tossed a bucket of seawater onto the deck. The plankton lit up the deck like a scattering of twinkling stars in a midnight sky. We were told to get into the water and to wave our hands around in front of ourselves to activate the microorganisms and to show off their luminescence. For a few moments I thought the flashed might have been from the sparklies in my nail polish. Then I remembered, no light was available to light up my nails. This then became a neat experience, but both Don and I had expected more of an overall glow based on the brochure image. Don pointed out with the right camera set up that billions of individual plankton flashes could be built in a perception of a glowing ring where waves had crashed onto the shoreline over several minutes.

We headed back to Ao Nang and our open sided tuk tuk ride back into Krabi. Again, we were soaked both from the rain and the wave splashes from the boat.

Time for a shower and bed, ready for our flight the next day to Chiang Mai.