Fishing and New Year

What better way to spend new years eve than an early morning fishing trip and a number of hours on the open ocean. Six hours, three unsuccessful "big ones", forty tuna and a spot of sunburn later (also having successfully seen off a number of bouts of seasickness) we returned to dry land, absolutely shattered. Although I say dry, this is not strictly accurate as the rains had begun and the clouds had enveloped much of the Lanta coastline.

A day of fishing is totally exhausting. Not only does it take a serious amount of effort to reel in 3 (ok sized) tuna, but the fish itself puts up quite a fight once you get it in the boat. It's a strong bugger that's for sure, the most ridiculous moments being when three were reeled in at once and Ty and I spent far too long chasing them around the deck of the boat, desperately trying to grab them - much to the amusement of the two Thai fisherman who were with us.

Upon arrival home we were both showered and buffed up for the NYE celebrations which rather cordially consisted of a fancy three course dinner at the Frog restaurant in Saladan complete with fancy wine. This was followed by a swift retreat back to our resort (for we feared a repeat of Pai Christmas eve celebrations as the town was uncharacteristically quiet - we also had no back up motorcycle this time!). Oh, we had gone for a cocktail at one of our favourite bars, Corner Bar, beforehand as well. They also happen to do the best iced chocolate with whipped cream on top drinks that I have ever tasted - no word of a lie.

As we were on the road on the way home we noticed that there were hundreds and hundreds of lanterns lining the skies along Long Beach. It looked absolutely amazing and we headed straight down there. We saw 2009 in at the Korner Bar (different from above) playing techno and breaks which got everyone up dancing. Their mojitos were good too. About an hour into the new year, and a good few mojitos later, we were both too shattered to continue and allowed ourselves the relative luxury of sleep. Happy 2009 all around!