DAY 210 - 15 MARCH 1991
Liberty - In Port - Patong Beach, Phuket Thailand
I slept in today, finally got ready to head out to Phuket about noon. The Ships Master of the Kilauea and I were the only ones on the liberty launch, it seems the rest of the crew were already ashore. We started with the liberty launch, a fairly large boat, then as we got close to shore, we were switched to a small boat, because the water gets shallow quite a way out.
The local boats have a very unique looking motor set up. As opposed to your normal Outboard motor like you'd see on a fishing boat, these boats had a motor on a pedistal, with a long handle out the front to pivit it with, and a long straight shaft running out the back, to the propeller. Looks very unsafe, if nothing else, with all the exposed parts, but as we got closer to shore, I began to see the genius of the contraption. The boat driver could lift the prop as we hit the shallow water, and even pivot the motor sideways out the side of the boat, for a very effective turn around. Not to bad!
I checked into a hotel for about 700 Thai baht, or about $30 US. Took a quick look at my room, dropped off my duffle bag, and went for a look around town for a couple hours. Eventually I found some of our crew, Zippy, Searles, Tabor, and some of their wives were hanging out. That's right, these guys had their wives fly over to Thailand.
Later on we found a cool little bar called Duck Tonight, which became one of our official meet up places. Beer was cheap and cold. The girls were cute and very warm. That makes for a dangerous combination, especially after being out for over 6 months. We ended up drinking off and on till around 0600, when I finally dragged my silly ass back to my hotel. Slept a few hours and then headed back to the boat, need to save a bit of money, it would be pretty easy to come out of a place like Thailand broke and happy though!
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