Protection for a safe and happy event is sought by the Sea Gypsy ritual of casting bad spirits out into the sea, at a traditional boat floating ceremony. Side-street cultural booths display and demonstrate the making of traditional arts and crafts including Pa-the, traditional Muslim cloth weaving and Toi-pa-nun, a handicraft made from Toi leaves. Other booths throughout the festival grounds feature organizations and individuals dispersing information about special projects on the island.
Since the festival is an evening and night-time event, sailors will have plenty of time to explore the many beautiful islands surrounding Ko Lanta. There 19 islands within easy day-sailing range, offering excellent snorkeling and diving, beautiful beaches, caves, mangroves and the fantastic ‘Hong’ at Ko Muk. A gentle sail back to Old Town as the festival comes to life, and you have a perfect pleasure cocktail. The good thing is, you can do it all again the next day!
Boats should head mid channel between Ko Po and Ko Lanta and anchor anywhere within range of the Old Town pier. (Pos 07° 32’ N 099° 06’ E)
There will be ferry services from the pier throughout the evening to avoid problems with dinghies. (make arrangements with Lanta Marine Services, +66 (0) 831043109, email admin@lantamarineservices.com )
Dates of the 2010 Laanta Lanta festival have been confirmed as March 7th, 8th and 9th. We look forward to seeing you there!

See Laanta Lanta on You Tube

The free visas are available from all Thai embassies and consulates around the world and apply to the 60 day, single entry, visa (extendable for 1 month at 1900 THB).

All other visa types remain unchanged.

The Back Deck

If you’re cruising from Langkawi to Phuket, Ko Lanta offers a safe haven while en route. Don’t forget to bring your laptop though as the signal is only strong enough to reach the immediate surroundings of Orange House at the moment, we hope to extend this to cover the anchorage as soon as possible but we would need a range of about 500 metres to cover the anchorage, so if anyone knows how we can do this economically please contact us and let us know.

Khun Attit speaks fluent English and like many of the townsfolk, he is a descendant of the original settlers. He was actually born in the LMS office! (before we got here!) Next time you visit, pop in and have a chat with him while you buy some bacon!

The Laanta Lanta festival is the biggest and best of all the festivals we get here in Ko Lanta. The festival takes place in Old Town and brings together tourists and locals alike in a celebration of the cultural diversity that is unique to the island. This years festival takes place in Old Town on 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th March.

The festival site is very large and runs from the main street to the market area and playing field. The main street is closed to traffic and lined with all manner of stalls, selling everything from food and drink to arts and crafts. The whole street is beautifully decorated and lit by many Chinese lanterns, creating an atmosphere that lifts the heart.

The rest of the festival site is given over to entertainment with two big stages and many temporary bars built by some of the larger establishments from the west coast. The stages host many different kinds of shows and attracts bands from all over Thailand, playing everything from Sea Gypsy ( Rong-Ngen) folk songs to contemporary jazz and Reggae.

The festival starts in the early evening and runs late into the night throughout the three day event, which leaves plenty of time to cruise around the many islands within easy reach from here during the day or relax in Old Town and enjoy the special discounts of 10-20% offered to all visiting yachts by many establishments here. (register with LMS to get your discount card)

There will be ferry services from the pier throughout the evening to avoid problems with dinghies. Anchor anywhere in the channel between Ko Po and Ko Lanta Old Town.

THE RECENT CHANGE IN IMMIGRATION POLICY.

The Royal Thai Immigration department have recently reduced the amount of time given for a visa waiver from 30 days to 15 days to all people (except Malaysia) who arrive in the Kingdom of Thailand without a valid tourist/business/retirement/educational visa. (unless by air) THIS APPLIES TO ‘PASSENGERS’ ON SAILING VESSLES TOO. What this means is that you should check-in all people on board as either ‘captain’ or ‘crew’ and they will be given a waiver of 30 days, as before. This applies only if you are planning to exit the Kingdom on the same boat. If you are going to exit the Kingdom by any other means, ‘crew’ will have to put up the 20,000 baht bond, also as before. If you have friends traveling with you who will not be leaving on your boat, you need to make sure that they check-in as a ‘passenger’, but also that they will exit the Kingdom within 15 days. (no bond required)

If you are leaving your boat with LMS and then flying home, 1 ‘crew/captain’ and the rest ‘passengers’, again as before, but you’ll only have 15 days to exit.

We started by building an ‘A’ frame pontoon for placing the moorings. This is a very robust pontoon made from wood and steel, and for the floatation we have used 6 x 200lt heavy plastic barrels. The whole lot is bolted, nailed, epoxied, and tied together.

We plan to replace this with a larger, multi-purpose pontoon later which will act as a work dock to be taken along side boats needing repairs etc.(more on this later) The steel ‘A’ frame will then be attachable to this new pontoon and, having more floatation, this will enable us to pull the mooring blocks up for annual inspection.

The mooring blocks are made from steel reinforced concrete and weigh in at a hefty 600kgs! The eye is 1 inch steel which is interwoven with the 12mm re-bar in the block. To this block we have attached 10m of 1/2 inch, close linked chain, an over-sized swivel, and another 10m of 1 inch warp. This gives an overall 4:1 at MHWS.

We had the blocks delivered to the beach 2km south of the town, as this offered a firm base for the delivery truck to drive on, and was also the place where we had built the pontoon. The rest of the tackle was added and, on a rising tide, we floated the pontoon over the blocks, secured them, and let the tide do the work of lifting them. Once afloat, we towed the pontoon to the moorings area and the blocks were released without any problems.

Over the weeks that have passed since then we’ve been checking the moorings as they sank. They’re now about 1.5m below the mud, we’ve had 30kt+ gusts and consistent 20kt winds and, not surprisingly with 600kgs and sticky mud, nothing has moved.

Given the protection from extreme weather that the moorings area provides, our daily checks on the boats, and our annual checks on the moorings, we are very confident that LMS can boast the most secure moorings in the region.

LMS moorings and services really do offer you ‘true peace of mind’ while you are away from your boat.