Some more of Koh Ngai

This is probably going to be longer than planned, followed by other posts.

On our second full day at the island we woke up for a few minutes to watch the sunrise. 

After sleeping in we rented a kayak and went up the edge of our island. We were told it takes about 2.5 hours to go all the way around the island. Let's bring up a few points before I go further. 1) We're from Utah where there are rivers (or streams, creeks, puddles, and one big lake). We like to float downstream. Oceans have big waves, which brings me to the second point. 2) We're wimps. And finally 3) We're on vacation and don't want to work, which includes strenuous paddling against waves and currents. Therefore we went maybe half a mile up the beach and found a little cove to pull off in. There we grabbed our snorkeling gear and fins and waded out to some beautiful coral and fish. 

There were big purple clams, little white fish that sucked up sand from a hole and spit it (I watched those for several minutes), the ones that Casey believed were going to eat him, angel fish, these sea urchins (which also terrified Casey), and many many more. After a while we went back to the beach, sat in the shade, reapplied sunscreen, and tried to avoid watching the old nude Swiss couple in their boat sneaking along. We got back in the kayak and decided to try to go up to the point of the island. We were almost there, fighting the current that was much stronger with all the rocks, and turned back-again running into the nudes. We got back and swam in the sea where we noticed we were getting rather crisp. During lunch a thunderstorm rolled in (incredible thunder!) and we ate lunch while watching it. It only lasted about 30 minutes.

It was beautiful and awe inspiring, with the waves going from a smooth glass sea to a furious monster in a matter of minutes. It cooled things off and we enjoyed the rest of the evening walking up to see the other resorts. When we got back from dinner, one of the island dogs (we named him Batdog) followed us back and slept on our bungalow porch while we read.

See the ears? Thus, Batdog. He'd sneak up on us in the dark as we were walking and scare us. The dogs are all friendly, just stealthy. The rest of our night was basically hell. Our backs had been severely sunburned from snorkeling (despite the copious amounts of sunscreen we applied) and it was difficult to sleep. Casey's back was worse than mine and is currently peeling. He's now known as Casey-snake. 

The next day, despite the discomfort (that's too benign of a word for it), we hiked around. Next post. :)