Boat export and Cruising Tropical Islands.

As our boat was built in Thailand, we didn’t have a port clearance from our previous port. This required us to ”export” our boat which involves taking the boat to another country and checking us and the boat into that country. We chose Cambodia because it was closer to Pattaya incase we needed to return to Pattaya for any boat work, and also because it was closer (120nm to Cambodia compared to 500nm to Malaysia).
It was difficult to get accurate information about this process because the process changes over time and because it doesn’t seem to be something that many people do. Scott Finsten from Ocean Marina, Phil from Seawind Catamarans and Kevin Treloar from Cambodia provided invaluable assistance. We contacted several agents in Cambodia and one was able to provide some information so we engaged him. We sent him all our information including boat registration, port clearance from Pattaya, passport copies.
We left Ko Kut at 5am to ensure we got to the mouth of the Kong River by 830am in time to follow some local fishing boats into the shallow silted river. Unfortunately there were no fishing boats there so we used Navionics and Arc GIS charts viewed through Open CPN (thanks to Paul Higgins for SattoChart software) to navigate approximately 4nm up the river. We anchored in the middle of the deep part of the river before the bridge – not on the right hand side as advised because this would have required us to cross to the right hand side over some shallow parts of the river and we weren’t confident that our maps would show any recent changes in the depths. It was a fast flowing muddy river and it was nerve wracking leaving our boat there for an indeterminate length of time. Before we got in our dinghy we were greeted by some officials in a tinny. Unfortunately we weren’t able to communicate due to our lack of Cambodian language but we showed them all our papers and they made some phone calls. After waiting for them to hear back from their superiors, they allowed us to take our dinghy to shore. We had been directed to Cafe Laurent but all the cafe names were in Cambodian. Fortunately someone caught our eye and motioned for us to pull up at a small wooden jetty and he helped us tie up. He asked for our papers and looked at them for some time. He then told us it was $50US per person for him to take us to immigration. That was what we expected so we agreed with this. He took us in a Subaru to immigration, about 6 km away. Cambodians mostly drive on the right hand side of the road. He parked near Immigration and handed us over to an Immigration official who ushered us to a queue. There were only a handful of people at immigration and we didn’t have to wait very long before our passports had been stamped. We tried to find out if we could check back into Thailand and we asked numerous officials and they tried to help but it wasn’t clear if we were able to check into thailand at this border. So we found our agent and drove back to the river. He went to a building and came back with our Port Clearance. We had agreed on the amount for the port clearance and this was honoured. We paid him the $US100 for the trip to immigration. We untied our dinghy and returned to our boat that was thankfully in the same place and proceeded out of the river and back to Ko Kut.
We were thrilled to back at Ko Kut, so far our favourite anchorage in Thailand. We kayaked up the river from Ao Phrao past many small accommodation and eating businesses and then quietly wandered around a monastery and school that served the southern part of the island. Up the hill was a small temple and some other structures, all on the verge of being overtaken with lush greenery. Although the monastery was the destination, the journey past so many low key tourism businesses certainly part of the charm of the trip.
Another kayak trip up a river was from Ao Klong Chao (bay) past Peter Pan Resort on the southern side, took us to a “waterfall” sign, indicating it was time to walk through some mangroves and onto a local road to the waterfall.
Our next adventure was snorkelling on Ko Raet where some submerged statues are becoming part of the reef. There were a range of animals that are called “temple Statues”. We then visited Captain Hook resort for dinner and tied up the dinghy on their verandah.