Snorkelled on a day trip to the Racha Islands and had a rare, quiet moment in the water. The sea was clear enough to see the reef structure from above, and the whole trip had that slow, unhurried pace that makes you feel like time stretches.
Near Racha Bungalow Island, I spotted a big turtle and ended up swimming alongside it for around ten minutes. It kept a calm, steady rhythm, surfacing and dipping with no urgency, and I did my best to keep a respectful distance while still staying close enough to watch.
Turtles are shy, and true to form it eventually slipped deeper and disappeared under the water. Still, those few minutes were enough to make the whole day feel memorable—the kind of encounter that settles into memory without needing a photo to prove it.