We were up early since we went to bed so early. It was a beautiful sunrise.
We left Koh Mak and headed back to the base. We have been out for a week and it was time to go back to get water, diesel, and groceries. The motor sail trip back was uneventful. We arrived at the base and our charter company staff boarded the boat and guided us into the dock. We briefly met with the charter director. We asked him about the fishing that we see every night. We see the fishing boats go out and they have bright lights which we assumed were for processing the fish. Wrong! He says the waters in the gulf have been overfished so there is a lot of squid in these waters. The fisherman have significantly reduced the population of the fish that prey on the squid so the squid population has exploded. They use the lights to attract the squid to the surface and then catch the squid in nets. The middlemen go to the fishing boats while they are out to collect the squid and send it to Trat or Bangkok for retail sales. It’s sad that these waters are overfished and we wonder if the government is doing anything about it. Probably not.
We got into an open air taxi, a pickup truck with covered seats in the back, to go to town where we purchased some additional provisions. We went to Big C grocery store which is very similar to Big Y grocery about a mile away from us in E. Brookfield.
We returned to the base and the boat was all set, so off we went back to Koh Mak. We were back on the anchor by 2:00. We relaxed for the afternoon, yes I’m still engrossed by my book. Rick went for a swim and did a little laundry. After a shower, we went into Cococape pier to have a drink while watching the sunset. There we met some other people who are chartering from the same company. We shared a few saIling stories.
After the sunset we dinghed in to the Koh Mak Resort and had a light dinner.