THURSDAY 29th:
Torrential rain overnight with the occasional rumble of distant thunder. The rain and thunder continued until early afternoon but the heavy clouds remained. Most of the day spent in our room :-(
The rain stopped around 3pm but it was too late to go anywhere a distance away. We were hoping to continue our exploration of the island on the motorbike but not today. It remained very humid and I reckon the mosquitoes will be out in force tonight. So far, they've been remarkably absent as the weather has been so dry..... until now, so it's out with the Jungle DEET again.
Dinner down the beach again rounded off a boring day
FRIDAY 30th:
Back to HOT sunshine again this morning and extremely humid. Sweat dripping off just after the relatively short walk down to the waterfront and breakfast.
Resumed our motorbiking explorations but with a fairly crappy little bike, still it did the job and got us around the bits of the island we'd not yet been to.
Drove across to the far western tip of Ko Mak to Laem Tookkata, mostly on dirt roads. Then across to the southern tip of the island taking in an iced-coffee (worst I've ever tasted) at Ao Nid. Here there's a pier with ferries to Trat and Koh Kood. It's also where the electricity power cables come ashore to and from Koh Kood which can be seen across the waves.
Aom now getting weary from driving so we popped back to our resort and took a dip in the 32ºC sea. Showers and change of clothes and we were out on the bike again tasking in the so-called Vista Lookout Point. The place there called Thaidaho Vista Resort proclaimed itself to be closed until next December; 8 or 9 months away... not much of an eye for business then as many resorts on the island were fully booked here in March.
After taking some snaps from the 'Vista' we drove down to Ao Suan Yai and took in some ice-colds and watched the sun set with the island of Ko Rang in the far distance.
On our way back we stopped off at a roadside restaurant called "The Food Garden". Nice place with good food and worth another look if we get the chance.
Back at our resort we sat on the beach for a spell and had a nightcap of vodka & orange each (horrible orange cordial spoilt them).
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TOP LEFT: Loading coconuts.
TOP RIGHT: A house.
SECOND LEFT: Ko Mak taxi.
SECOND RIGHT: Old Ko Mak lighthouse.
THIRD LEFT: The end of the road. Quite a common sight where it seems they simply ran out of concrete and the road assumes its original dirt surface.
THIRD RIGHT: What the roads look like before re-surfacing with concrete.
BOTTOM: High tide along the coast.
SATURDAY 31st:
Still with our motorbike today. Drove out to near Ao Nid again. There's a resort nearby right on the tip of the southern end which looked as though it may offer good snorkelling but it wasn't that good.
The sea around Ko Mak is very shallow indeed. Your lucky to get 17-18 meters and that's miles offshore. As a diver of 50 years experience, the snorkelling here was of little interest. I accompanied Aom s she's nervous snorkelling solo.
Drove back to Ao Kao and did some snorkelling there. A few interesting items; a lionfish and a bluespotted ribbontail ray fish to mention two.
This was followed by a dip in the resort's pool.
Evening saw us with a couple of beers before jumping on the bike and dining at the Food Garden again.
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ABOVE: Couple of snaps of the fish encountered on the snorkelling jaunt.
LEFT: Bluespotted ribbontail ray
RIGHT: Lionfish
SUNDAY 1st APRIL:
Dull and very humid start to the day again. No motorbike today so we were home-based.
Walked up to the 'main' road as Aom was up for hunting for some Thai food. She can never make her mind up but I don't know why as all the restaurants sell the same food/same menu/same-same. She'll ask me which one do you prefer and I say "I don't mind as they're all the same". This ends up in a minor row as I refuse to make the decision; as long as it looks clean. It's the same when we do sit down with the menu. I decide (more often than not before we enter the place) within a few minutes, whereas Aom will scrutinise the menu.... why? She knows the menus on offer are pretty much all the same. It's a Thai thing!! 
MONDAY 2nd:
Last full day on Ko Mak. Lots and lots of thunder and lightning during the early hours and some heavy tropical rain.
Morning dawned overcast, dry and humid.
Took a motorbike out again rather than be stuck around Ao Kao all day and drove to Ao Suan Yai to look into ether canoeing or getting a ride out to Ko Kham island about a mile offshore. I reckoned it was too hot and humid to bother with a kayak and the next boat wasn't due until 13:15.
So with some hours to spare we took a drive up to the Cinnamon pier at the north-east tip of the island to suss out the snorkelling. Walked the length of the hugely long pier, then back to a point we could get into the water. Very shallow all the way out and not that much to see, so the swim was aborted after 30 minutes.
Back to our room for a shower, the idea of driving back to Ao Suan Yai was aborted and we spent time lunching and sun-dossing until 4pm.
Evening saw driving to Ao Pra and the Cococape Resort. Nice resort with a long rickety pier with (hooray!) a bar at the end.
I wish we'd found this place earlier instead of the last day. It's an excellent spot to watch the sun set, well it would be if we could have seen the sun! Alas, there was thick heavy cloud but it remained a peaceful cute place to enjoy a beer.
After sunset we looked for somewhere to eat dinner. The place I wanted to go back to, The Food Garden, was closed so we dined in the next door restaurant.
Back to our resort to settle bills an on to our room to pack the case ready for the off at 08:30 tomorrow.
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TOP: The rickety pier and the excellent bar at the end.
SECOND & THIRD: More of the same pier at Cococape.
FOURTH LEFT: Cococape pier from the shore.
FOURTH RIGHT: The main petrol/gas filling station on Koh Mak.
FIFTH LEFT: Some of these misspellings are a hoot. Got to be a prat to join this one.
FIFTH RIGHT: Beach warning sign on Ko Mak. Weighing over 3kg from a palm tree 30mts high these things'll hurt.
Falling coconuts kill 150 people each year worldwide.
BOTTOM: End shot; sunset on Koh Mak.
