Our River Rovers Cruise,

part two,

another deserted house, well resort really as it has a number of rooms,

Gordon commented that he has never seen any one stay here, it has it's own generator and is all ready to go, all you need is a boat, as with the other beach lots of hermit crabs, I wonder if it is possible to race them?

a few hundred meters along the coast is this house,

the family that live here look after the resort we have just visited,

a deserted bar on the next beach, the thought is that if some one wants to get married on a tropical island they can do so here,

trying to race hermit crabs is not all it is made up to be!

they just do not walk in straight line,

whose a pretty boy then? but I did have a bit of fun at Diana's expense, first by pretending to put one on her, then scratching her foot with mine, she thought one was going to bite her foot, I will not tell you what happened next, but the swelling should be gone by next week! joking!

one of the three Admirals Cups racers that Gordon has raced,

only two were here at the moment,

a nice house with a view,

over looking the bay,

in the bay there seems to be a random scattering of buoys,

they appear to be in no logical positions at all,

until you leave the bay and look at the right time, hanging from the buoys are ropes on which oysters grow,

then we make our way to our next port of call,

the engine just purring along,

the sun starting to set,

we past another fisherman trying his luck,

and another house with a view,

local fishermen getting ready for the evenings fishing I guess,

the Buddha on the hill at the left of the picture,

this is what we were heading for, the floating fish farm of sea gypsies,

I have been told that the owner lives here 24-7, never going onto land,

you need a bit of balance to walk along these boards,

there is not only fish but crabs being kept here, some livestock for the local food market and some of the bigger fish for aquariums,

that's torn it, Diana has seen the nets with live lobsters in,

so the owner pulls a few up to show us,

and very nice they looked too!

then Jeff spotted something different,

a lion fish, Pterois volitans, sometimes called a turkey fish, the dorsal spines can give you a painful sting,

our choice is made, 4 lobsters are bought and prepared for the pot,

blue when alive,

then Jeff noticed some thing else, a shark,

which Jeff tried to pet,

but with out much success,

Da doing the moon walk on the moving planks,

it took a few moments to work out what these bits of string were for,

a bit difficult to see but oysters were growing on them,

back to the kitchen the lobsters were being prepared,

any moment now,

then Da found some thing else on some string,

some gorgonian coral, some times called sea whips,

whilst waiting for our meal to be cooked I had a look in some of the other pens, in this one a box fish,

and a cluster of moray eels,

we split the cost of the lobsters,

red in coulour now they are cooked,

and delicious they looked too,

mine, all mine!

but I managed to pry one from Diana's hands,

yummy! it is strange that over here they do not have the large claws of lobster found in colder waters,

they cost 800 baht each, what a perfect way to round of a perfect day,

and they could not have been fresher,

then goodbye to our host as we made our way back to shore, this was such a great day out for so many reasons, we all throughly enjoyed every moment of it and I would recomended it to any one that wants some thing totaly different and almost unique,

by the time we arrived it was already dark, the lights along the jetty making a pretty picture,

also by now we were hungry again, so a trip to Fatty's,

chicken and chips for Diana,

'Cheers!', from all of us,

veal with fried potatoes for Jeff and three types meat for Da, pork, chicken and beef with chips, then home for us all to Jeff and Da's house.