A Bad Day At The Beach

[Super Hans]

I've been here for 10 months and have seen nothing bad happen at the beach. Until yesterday. First up, I hear a bang and screams and see a jetski nose-up in the water, with 2 passengers scattered, apparently drowning. The visible nose looked like the fin from jaws, with the rest completely submerged. No one could refloat it, and it took at least a dozen attempts from the beach boys to tow it back to dock - they needed the speedboat in the end. Next up was the parasailing boys: I'm not sure if it's the wind direction, or them not knowing their <deleted> from their elbows, but one poor sod ended up being dragged head first along the beach and into the water before they abandoned their attempt at getting him airbourne. They tried again a while later with the same results. Looked quite painful. Finally, an old fella stepped on a sea urchin (?) - looked mighty painful, as he had large purple spines sticking out of his foot. The beach boys looked on with great interest, regaling tales of amputation, before calmly rubbing lime into the wound and banging the unremovable spines into the heel with a mallet. They then went snorkelling for a bit and came back with a wheeliebin literally full of them. I had no idea they were there, or how painful they could be. I will tread more carefully in future.

No drama for 10 months, and 3 incidents within an hour. TiT.

[HomeisThai]

The beach boys looked on with great interest, regaling tales of amputation, before calmly rubbing lime into the wound and banging the unremovable spines into the heel with a mallet. They then went snorkelling for a bit and came back with a wheeliebin literally full of them. I had no idea they were there, or how painful they could be. I will tread more carefully in future.

No drama for 10 months, and 3 incidents within an hour. TiT.

They banged the spikes into the mans heel?

[seonai]

Obviously you are on Patong beach. Apparently the best thing to do with sae urchin 'stings' is to pee on it so I guess the lime was similar

[donna]

The beach boys looked on with great interest, regaling tales of amputation, before calmly rubbing lime into the wound and banging the unremovable spines into the heel with a mallet. They then went snorkelling for a bit and came back with a wheeliebin literally full of them. I had no idea they were there, or how painful they could be. I will tread more carefully in future.

No drama for 10 months, and 3 incidents within an hour. TiT.

They banged the spikes into the mans heel?

yep. they smash them to pieces. the spines actually dissolve themselves after a while, but you cannot pull them out as they just crumble. a friend of mines daughter stood on one here in bali the other day. they warmed up some coconut oil, mixed it with the lime powder that you eat with betel nut and formed a paste which was then applied to the food. this must have formed some kind of poultice as the spines extracted themselves. amazing.

in the past in thailand i have applied lemon juice which helps to dissolve them.

[LivinLOS]

Patong beach is the last place on the island I would go to for a beach experience.. And the thought of the water !!!

[Nirvana]

Obviously you are on Patong beach. Apparently the best thing to do with sae urchin 'stings' is to pee on it so I guess the lime was similar

Seonai

I thought this was for jelly fish stings etc. I knw in Africa they put baby papaya on the wound and by next morning it had drawn out the spike and not much pain left either, which i thought was a usefull trick if you happen to be able to access baby papaya oif course...

[Ping]

Patong beach is the last place on the island I would go to for a beach experience.. And the thought of the water !!!

The last time I went into the water at Patong was over twenty years ago and you could clearly see the myriad particles of rubbish in the water - which looked darn close to effluent to me. I will never step foot in the waters of that particular beach again.

[geriatrickid]

As many have observed the water quality in patong is not particularly good and worse so during rains as the storm sewers bring in untreated waste and filth. So if you have an open wound and are mucking about, do remember to clean the wound.

For the life of me I can't understand how normally germaphobic europeans and japanese tourists frolic in those waters. There is a reason why e.coli counts are not posted in visible areas as is done in many other countries. The usual cut off is 125 CFUs (colony forming units per 100ml). However, many national health services recommend that caution be used when the CFU is above 80. I am unaware of a current QC program in Thailand and the standards appear to allow for a count of up to 1000 CFUs before there's concern . Only 105 beaches were inspected in the past two years by the Pollution Control Department. If you are getting nervous by now, here's the Thai government presentation from a public health seminar that rates some of the beaches. Check out pages 26 onwards. Some are 5 Star rated (**snicker**)

http://igcc.ucsd.edu/pdf/Eak-on.pdf

Last tip, remember what your mom used to tell you about rinsing after swimming? She was right.

[baggies666]

What beaches should I be looking to go to as I am coming to Patong very soon and don't mind travelling to get somewhere better.

Thanks

Patong beach is the last place on the island I would go to for a beach experience.. And the thought of the water

Edited February 13, 2008 by baggies666

[Ping]

There are outflows into most of the beach areas, but some of the better beaches are Naiharn (nice, good size, about 20 minutes by car/bike to the south of Patong), and Laem (Cape) Sing, about fifteen minutes to the north. Laem Sing is small and you have to go down some rough steps to get ti it, but it is also quite okay. You pass through Kamala on the way, which has an 'okay' beach. About five minutes further from Laem Sing is Surin Beach - my favourite, but it develops a strong rip during the low season. Closer to Patong are Paradise Beach (small, not so good for swimming due to the shell fragments and pebbles), Karon Beach (a long beach, mainly okay for swimming), Kata Beach (can get 'dirty', particularly to the north end of it, but generally okay) and Kata Noi Beach (not too bad). If you have the time, they are all worth exploring. There are many others further from these, and those on the north-western side (near the more expensive resorts) are quite nice in the main, although the ones near the resorts are mainly treeless. If you have a vehicle at your disposal though, there is nothing more enjoyable than to go exploring them!

[SurferBob]

There are outflows into most of the beach areas, but some of the better beaches are Naiharn (nice, good size, about 20 minutes by car/bike to the south of Patong), and Laem (Cape) Sing, about fifteen minutes to the north. Laem Sing is small and you have to go down some rough steps to get ti it, but it is also quite okay. You pass through Kamala on the way, which has an 'okay' beach. About five minutes further from Laem Sing is Surin Beach - my favourite, but it develops a strong rip during the low season. Closer to Patong are Paradise Beach (small, not so good for swimming due to the shell fragments and pebbles), Karon Beach (a long beach, mainly okay for swimming), Kata Beach (can get 'dirty', particularly to the north end of it, but generally okay) and Kata Noi Beach (not too bad). If you have the time, they are all worth exploring. There are many others further from these, and those on the north-western side (near the more expensive resorts) are quite nice in the main, although the ones near the resorts are mainly treeless. If you have a vehicle at your disposal though, there is nothing more enjoyable than to go exploring them!

Wise words mate... I'm in agreement. Kamala is nice depending on the tides and weather conditions, good thing is it's a safe beach even when there's surf. Surin is my local surf break and is pretty dam_n dangerous at times... had a few interesting moments out Surin in the rips last year.

Cheers,

//Bob

[jackyseymour]

I've been here for 10 months and have seen nothing bad happen at the beach. Until yesterday. First up, I hear a bang and screams and see a jetski nose-up in the water, with 2 passengers scattered, apparently drowning. The visible nose looked like the fin from jaws, with the rest completely submerged. No one could refloat it, and it took at least a dozen attempts from the beach boys to tow it back to dock - they needed the speedboat in the end. Next up was the parasailing boys: I'm not sure if it's the wind direction, or them not knowing their <deleted> from their elbows, but one poor sod ended up being dragged head first along the beach and into the water before they abandoned their attempt at getting him airbourne. They tried again a while later with the same results. Looked quite painful. Finally, an old fella stepped on a sea urchin (?) - looked mighty painful, as he had large purple spines sticking out of his foot. The beach boys looked on with great interest, regaling tales of amputation, before calmly rubbing lime into the wound and banging the unremovable spines into the heel with a mallet. They then went snorkelling for a bit and came back with a wheeliebin literally full of them. I had no idea they were there, or how painful they could be. I will tread more carefully in future.

No drama for 10 months, and 3 incidents within an hour. TiT.

Oh Jeez, thanks for those mental pictures - next time take your video camera with you Now if we could just get hold of the guy who told us about the parasailing woman banging all along the seafront sunbeds and splice the two together, think how many hits on Youtube we'd get!

[IgnacioE]

I've been here for 10 months and have seen nothing bad happen at the beach. Until yesterday.

No drama for 10 months, and 3 incidents within an hour. TiT.

Since 2 years, I've been taking my 2 young kids to Patang Beach where the kids playground is and they have had a great time especially swimming with the local kids when the sun is going down. I figure that it builds up resistance to disease kinda like getting vaccine shots :-)

Sounds like you just witnessed a bad beach day that's all.

[phuketsub]

I've been here for 10 months and have seen nothing bad happen at the beach. Until yesterday.

No drama for 10 months, and 3 incidents within an hour. TiT.

Since 2 years, I've been taking my 2 young kids to Patang Beach where the kids playground is and they have had a great time especially swimming with the local kids when the sun is going down. I figure that it builds up resistance to disease kinda like getting vaccine shots :-)

Sounds like you just witnessed a bad beach day that's all.

Well, the water is cleanest in the monsoon season, when it is least safe to swim.

If you must swim, the area you were at is at least a few kilos north of Klong Pakbang, where all the untreated waste of 10s of thousands of hotel rooms and bars enters, much of it untreated (or all during rain)...

You can see the "brown line" clearly from aerial photos on some days..or even from some hillside estates...