Slept in then spent the morning packing and at the internet. At noon I was back to checkout and get picked up by the dive shop. The dive shop gave me a ride into Patong where I had until five to entertain myself. I'd been planning on going to a reasonably nice restaurant and hanging out all afternoon reading, but there is no power in the town so almost everyplace is closed. Finally ended up having lunch at the same place I went to dinner last night. After lunch I did a couple more laps around the town then hung out on the beach - today is the closest I've seen to beach weather since arriving in Thailand.
At five went back to the dive shop and waited a half hour for the charter car to pick us up (there were two Swedes and an Australian there as well). Then it was off to another dive shop to fill out the same paperwork again and wait some more. Then we were off to where the boat was moored and hour and a half drive north up the coast. As it got dark the sunset was spectacular, and for the first time since I arrived in Thailand I started to feel cold.
At the boat we were served dinner and told we'd have to wait another two hours for the other two divers. It wasn't a problem since it's only a four hour cruise out to the islands. The boat is quite massive and there are only six of us (it normally takes 18) so we each get a cabin to ourselves. As we were all sitting up in the "theater" (a covered deck with a nice television and audio system) watching a video it started to dump rain and blow some - there went our hopes for a smooth ride out. The other two finally made it - a Chinese couple from Hong Kong. At with Con-Air on the TV we headed out to sea. The ride was rough and after the movie I opted to try and sleep since it was too rough to watch TV or read. I laid awake in my cabin until we got to the islands sometime around three then drifted off.
