To Phi-Phi Islands

It's a real privilege flying a microlite in Phuket - flying trikes here is great fun and there's lots to see. So, on 27th January 2010, my friend Michael and I decided to go and take a peek at Koh Phi-Phi ("Koh" is Thai for "island"). Michael is a pretty good movie cameraman and has a very swish Canon video camera - once I get some decent edits I'll post them here.

We lifted our wheels at 16.50 hours, aided by fairly light winds - about 2 or 3 mph at 1,000 feet; there was a bit of incipient (but developing) cumulus around which caused us a few bumps but nothing to worry about. The air temperature was very warm and at 1,000 feet we had 29 deg C (about 84 F).

We headed off on 130 degrees and were going to be over water for most of the trip. Phi-Phi is about 25 miles from my home strip and so it was going to take about 20 minutes to get there. Phi-Phi is a particularly beautiful pair of islands and lies in the famous "Phang Nga" Bay. Phi-Phi Don to the North has several hotels and bungalows on it and is frequented by upper-middle-class Tarquins and Rebeccas on their "gap" year. Phi-Phi Ley to the South is uninhabited but full of tourists in high season - Tarquin and Rebecca can be seen here too in droves. I've been to Phi-Phi many times on my boat and so I was very familiar with all its bays and coves.

After a few minutes we saw Koh Gai ("Chicken Island": 7* 53' 31" N / 98* 30' 53" E) and thought we'd orbit to take some snaps. Koh Gai is very popular with day-trippers who sit on the beach and buy food/drinks at vastly inflated prices from the monopolistic Thai vendors - it's often packed with local speedboats and is a place I've always avoided on my boat. They've even built a hideous array of water features now in dayglo green - see bottom-right of island. However, from the air it looked exquisite:

As we pressed on to Phi-Phi, which by now we could see through the haze, I noticed that some of the puffy cumulus were starting to develop "heads" and so I made a mental note to keep an eye on these. I can check wind-speed on my Tanarg's "Enigma" screen and we were now getting around 6 or 7 mph at 1,000 feet. We were still getting bounced around a little but again, nothing to worry about.

As Phi-Phi grew larger, so did the turbulence and as we got South-West of Phi-Phi Ley, we were getting tossed around with a degree of discomfort. There was nothing to threaten the safety of the flight but in my (limited) experience, when winds are picking up, they normally get worse before they get better. We took some shots of the island and I especially wanted to get shots of Maya Bay (7* 40' 23" N / 98* 45' 54" E) - this provided the location for the movie "The Beach", starring Leonardo di Caprio. I really wanted to get some overhead shots of the actual beach but the winds were still picking up and when I glanced at my screen (number 4), I saw we now had 16 mph at 1,000 feet.

Here's Phi-Phi Ley - the entrance to Maya Bay is in the centre where the boats are anchored and you can see the wind-lines in the water:

As we headed back home I noticed some large, tall and dark cumulus clouds brewing to the North - it was a simple matter to circumnavigate them without much inconvenience but I felt glad that I'd decided to turn back when I did. There were also a number of showers dotted around the place, clearly visible. Passing over Koh Gai again, the wind was now 15 mph where it had been 7 mph on our way out, the direction had also changed and all this spelled unstable conditions! About a mile from the airfield we hit an up-draft and when I glanced at my variometer, I saw 750 feet/min rate of climb with the bar neutral - the clouds were now certainly working their magic!

The wind sock was gusting about a little so I made a very short circuit and landed about 30 deg cross-wind in around 10 mph. As usual, it was a "Royal Flight" standard of landing!

It was a very enjoyable flight of 1 hour and 10 minutes and I felt we'd done everything correctly. I'm sure I could have continued to get the overhead shots of Maya in safety but hey, what's the hurry?

Now I'll have to go back and do it all over again - what a pisser!