Ko Muk and Tham Morakot are the most prominent points in the Trang Sea. Ko Muk is mostly occupied by sea-facing towering cliffs to the west. Located on the eastern side of the island is a village of fishermen who have still maintained their ways of life as islanders. On the island, 800m around the coast by sea from our beach, is Tham Morakot, a unique sea cave which is where we are off to today. We've friendly with two french couples and they join us on our trip and we motor out by long tail boat which collects us from the beach. We reach the famed Emerald Cove, a somewhat captivating quirk of nature - a sinkhole rather than a cave, the Cove (sounds better than Emerald Sinkhole) was formed when the roof of a partly underwater cave collapsed, allowing light to flood in and jungle to develop. The only way in is by sea and the girls don life jackets and we plop into the sea. The interior beach is reached by swimming through an access tunnel that leads from the 
outside world. We swim into the mouth of the cave and then swim in the dark about 100m. The girls are so brave as we blindly follow our guide with only a small torch to show the way, we just kept swimming not knowing how deep the water is or what is also in the water below us. 
Suddenly we seem to round a bend in the tunnel and light from the sinkhole floods in. We swim through the arch at the end of the darkness and into an extraordinary inner beach surrounded on all sides by jungle covered cliffs. The water is a brilliant blue colour and we swim to the shore to rest on the sand and read the inscription on the stone on shore. 
We spend half an hour or so here until our guide signals that the tide is changing and that we must return to the boat. We swim back into the darkness and although we are much closer to the cave roof due to the incoming tide, the girls swim more confidently now and follow the tiny light back out. The best is surprise is yet to come! As we near the exit towards the boat the light from the outside floods in and illuminates the water, now turquoise green and almost glowing.So unusual and beautiful.
We swim back to the boat and motor on towards Ko Kradan where we snorkel for an hour or two off the side of the boat. Sadly a lot of the coral is dead, but there are countless fish of every shape, size and colour and spiny black sea urchins. The girls cope well and rest from time to time in the boat to adjust their masks and take a breather.
We land on Ko Kradan and have a snack lunch and well earned drink and the girl play on the beach before we start our 40 minute motor on the long tail boat back to Ko Mook.
As we head out to sea it starts to drizzle so we huddle under the male shift cabin until we are back on our beach.
No comments:
Post a Comment