Yippee! Sea adventure day is finally here! We were being picked up at 7:30am so we hurried up out of our beds, wolfed down our free breakfast, and waited for our ride to show. In comes a military style jeep ready to take us over to the boat. Odd that we were the only ones getting the ride, but we also figured we had others to pick up too. The brochure said we would have a Sea Safari adventure by speed boat – with a light breakfast, snorkeling, canoeing to explore the ancient limestone cave, board a luxury boat to have a delicious buffet lunch, then depart by speed boat again to the National marine park for a spectacular climb through a dense rain forest up to the island’s view point, then back to the main island to meet the baby elephants and do an ATV adventure (or elephant trekking but we chose the ATV). All sounds fun and good huh? Well, that’s the beauty of Marketing for ya, and kinda gives us Marketing folks a bad name.
I can’t say it was all that bad – just a little over embellished on some things. We boarded the boat. But the boat was not a speed boat as promised in the brochure. Apparently the speed boat wasn’t working that day (shocker!), and a few others we were with were complaining as well. The guide said we could talk to the hotel where we booked the tour and ask for some money back (which we did later on and got back about $3 each). So instead of a 30-45min trip to the sighseeing and snorkeling area by speed boat, it took us double that time on a big party boat. I went to the top deck and took advantage of the extra time by sunbathing. Once at the location, we were split into groups – my group did the canoeing first and then the snorkeling second. The canoeing was crazy and Mike and I were out of sync a lot, making our canoe end up in circles or too much to the right or too much to the left. I think it was just the fact that our strengths were different, but either way, it was fun. Right when we started I had seen a jellyfish over by the boat area so I worried about how many more would be out there – hope we weren’t going to tip over! We started out along the rocks and then in between them, getting some great photo opportunities in. We paddled around some and then went in a little early and chose to start the snorkeling part. But while we were waiting for our gear, we overheard a few people say they got stung by the jellyfish and also that because the waters were so merky you couldn’t see anything below! What a bust! So as nervous as I was, I went in anyhow, but they were right, you couldn’t see jack in the water. I figured I wasn’t going to stay there sucking down sea water and possibly get stung by a jellyfish, so I went up into the boat while Mike stayed out. Kids were having a good time, jumping off the side of the boat into the water and when Mike came up he did so too. I got some great shots of him jumping out. Then I did it too (keeping my eye out for those crazy jellyfish!), and yes, it was fun! But I think I popped something in my ear as I hit the water cuz my ear has been a little hollow sounding since then. The pictures we took jumping off the side of the boat were fun. 
Once everyone got back on board we ate a traditional thai lunch while making our way over to the national park. We boarded a small little pontoon like boat and motored our way to the island. We climbed through the trees and stuff, but definitely not as vast of a trek through a rainforest like the brochure said – another bust! We made it to the view point at the top, took pictures of the lagoon in the middle and made our way back down again. On the way back to the main island on the boat, we sat again up at the top of the deck and sunbathed more, I think I even slept for about an hour. We all piled into the jeeps again and started making our way to the final part of the trip – the elephant feeding and ATV ride. But seems like the tour guides had another agenda in mind which was to take us about 2-3 miles past the final destination area and stop at a souvenir store for about 15min. Nice eh? Finally we headed over to the last part of the trip. The ATV ride was not what we expected either. It was more like a track that you got to ride around twice before you had to get off and let another person go. I didn’t even get 2 rides around because my ATV broke down before I made it around the first time! I fed 2 baby elephants, they were so cute! Both kept trying to take the last of my bananas. It saddened me to see they were chained up and so I had to get outta there before I started to cry.
For dinner I was craving pizza and I read about this place called Baia which served Italiano food, but mostly they bragged about the pizza being so good. So I wanted to check it out. No more Thai food for awhile, I wanted to get back to eating regular foods. I think so far, Baia is just about my favorite place we’ve eaten at – oh my goodness the pizza was sooo good! And it really hit my craving for just what I wanted. I had a funghi pizza (mushroom & cheese) and added onions to it. I ate everything but 1 slice, I couldn’t believe I put all that away! I guess all that adventure in the water made me really hungry. Since it was kinda early still, we decided to go have an after dinner drink at a place we’d seen on our walk in the Village called Starfish & Co. They had a really cool Persian style to their decor with people sitting on pillows to eat, and the music was a little techno-ish. In addition to drinks we got a banana flambe with coconut ice cream – yummy! We didn’t quite feel like going back and call it an evening yet so headed further down the Village some more and stopped at this English pub called The Frog & Gecko. We chatted with the bar owner for a bit who was from Chicago and listened to a guy called Chris sing for an hour or so. I had a few shots called a Quick F**K… which quickly went to my head and not too soon after that, I went home and passed out on the bed.
