...And another thing! Keeping your ‘lid on’ when jet ski/party-bus style groups of rubbish-strewing, scantily-clad holidaymakers descend on paradise is mentally testing as Jess discovers
JESS LLOYDMOSTYN Jess and James left the UK in 2011 in their Crossbow 42 and have sailed halfway round the world, growing their crew en route. Follow their journey at water-log.com
I’ve just barely opened my eyes and am slowly having my first sips of morning tea and then I hear it. The high-pitched whine and rhythmical, repetitive smacking of a small craft on the surface of the water – the jetskis are here. All too quickly the bliss of our millpond-still anchorage, off a white sand beach fringed with coconut palms, leading down to a clear turquoise sea with a healthy coral reef is shattered by the ubiquitous scourge of paradise: the tourists.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, “people in glass boats shouldn’t throw seashells”, or something like that. But there is a very big difference between the type of tourist who comes to coastlines on their own boat, gently and quietly exploring the natural beauty and cultural appeal versus the party-bus style of large, noisy, groups of rubbish-strewing, scantily-clad holidaymakers now crammed by the boatload into an anchorage, destroying the peace and tranquillity that abounded mere moments ago. Maybe I just need another large sip of tea.
I know it makes me sound extraordinarily uncharitable and believe me, I do appreciate beyond measure just how fortunate and privileged a position we are in to be able to travel the world by boat and dawdle at our leisure wherever we choose. It’s just that nothing changes the feel of a place quite like it being flooded with day trippers.
In the Caribbean we contended with cruise ships. You’d have a nice sundowner and enjoy the view ashore from the cockpit and then a huge behemoth of a boat would stealthily appear in the wee hours, anchored smack bang in the middle of the bay. By morning the sleepy little town was swamped by grinning sightseers, all khaki shorts and sunburned elbows, clicking cameras and posing for selfies. They would descend on every little coffee shack or small local eatery like locusts, stripping them of their contents. Anyone foolish enough to foray ashore in their wake would find only slim pickings remaining.
Sailing in Thailand was a game of tourist hide-and-seek. Between Phuket and the mainland, the water is littered with steep, limestone islands of staggering beauty that
