NTension had been building locally for months, but being a butt for jeers and sarcasm must still have come as a shock to Marine Transport Department Technical and Planning Director Vilawan Siringampen. She and her team of bespectacled engineers from Bangkok had come to Muang Phuket School in Rawai the afternoon of June 5 to “exchange views” on Phase II of her department’s Chalong Marina project.

After more than five hours of long-winded explanation and back-peddling by the consulting engineers – whose problems were compounded by inept microphone technique – the local people, NGO representatives and elected officials in attendance were clearly out of patience.

The most animated were sunburnt, long-tail boatmen: “Speak southern dialect if you must speak, but get it over with!” said one from the back of the room whose comments elicited cheers.

The three competing plans presented by the Marine Transportation Office, left and bottom, were met with jeers from the crowd during a town-hall style meeting.

“I’m here to offer my opinion on this project and you professors will please stay put – we need no more of your explanations,” said an elected tambon official. His gibe was greeted by wild applause. In fact, applause was wholly for speakers who derided the project, now well into Phase I of construction.

So, Planning Director Vilawan, better-spoken than her subordinates, briefly emphasized the Transport Ministry’s desire to meet the people’s needs; noted that the project as outlined during the meeting had been honestly arrived at and was a good one, considering both budgetary and environmental constraints.

She left the podium – appearing perplexed amid the hubbub. Few heeded her remarks; all were talking among themselves.

Also caught in the middle was Phuket Provincial Administration Organization (OrBorJor) President Anchalee Wanich Thepabutr, the island’s highest elected official. The OrBorJor has signed on to finance part of the proposed marina’s infrastructure and will manage the completed project. She is, in effect, the project’s final arbiter. Just before the meeting’s end, K. Anchalee addressed her anxious constituents.

University of California at Los Angeles-educated, K. Anchalee was for eight years Phuket’s sole MP. As a senior member of the Democrat Party, she was awarded one of the coveted “party-list” seats in the 2000 election and served on the party’s Management Committee. She is regarded by many as the island’s most powerful political figure.

Seafarer Divers owner Guy “Charlie” Lidureau also circulated a new plan, right, that he says will better protect the marina from swells and provide more parking.

With the Democrats in a strong position to lead the next government, and with a Cabinet post perhaps at hand – K. Anchalee can have no interest in projects that cause dissension or cast her OrBorJor administration in the role of oppressor.

“Nothing is being pushed on anyone. We’re here to exchange views. This is a democratic system we live in,” she said in her peculiarly refined brand of southern dialect. “We have the right to [tell the government] what we think....”

The substance of what the roughly 130 persons in attendance thought was that the project is wrong: too small and ill-laid out for a proper yacht marina; damaging to the environment; and providing nothing for small operators, save additional hassle and expense.

In a nutshell, the Marine Transport Department and its consulting firms want to construct around the southern half of Chalong pier a 210-slip yacht harbor: 66 slips for boats up to 12 meters; 82 for boats up to 16m; 36 for vessels up to 20m; 19 for those up to 30m; and seven for those up to 50m.

Phase 1, costing 70 million baht and slated for completion September 30 after 340 days of construction, involves making only 44 slips (30 x 12m; 8 x 16m; 4 x 20m; 1 x 30m; 1 x 50m).

It also involves installation of most infrastructure: dredging a boat basin; marker towers to aid navigation; freshwater tanks; plumbing; electricity (the slips will have power outlets for re-charging batteries, etc); a fueling and water station; and a single-story maintenance building. There is also a new onshore, underground sewage treatment facility that empties into the klong running behind the bars and beachside restaurants before discharging in- to the still, shallow seawater near Kan Eng 2 restaurant.

During Phase 2, budgeted at 300 million baht, a multi-purpose building on the pier to house administration, immigration and customs services will be built; the boat basin expanded and a boat channel dredged; and 166 slips added. Plumbing and electricity will be appropriately enhanced – and two breakwaters, “made of large boulders, easily and cheaply sourced in Phuket” put on the south and southeast sides of the pier.

The riprap would have a combined length of 1,300 meters and the whole project would cover more than half a square kilometer.

Budget for the fueling station and water tanks comes from the OrBorJor; the remainder from the Ministry of Transport. Two variations on the basic plan were offered at the June 5 meeting. All looked pretty good on paper.
Best of all, the project would generate a 24% “economic return” and pay for itself within five years. “It’s certainly something the government should undertake,” the consultants wrote.

The project was initiated in 2004, when the Marine Transport Department signed contracts with three companies – Golden Plan, Sea Spectrum and STS Engineering and Consultants – to engineer marinas in four places: two in the Gulf of Thailand and two on the Andaman coast.

The companies were also charged with surveying the likeliest spots for construction. Unfortunately, in the Marine Transport report the three firms are referred to as an undifferentiated unit, so it is impossible to say who does what.

A key word is “marina”, that is, a port for pleasure craft. Chalong Bay, it must be recalled, is a port not only for yachts, but also for small craft of various types: commercial fishing boats; long-tail boats that transport cargo and passengers to off-shore islands, and island-shuttle speedboats. The marina envisioned offers little to owners of such vessels. Indeed it was engineered, according to the consulting report, solely for pleasure craft.

But according to Tambon Rawai Moo 3 (Koh Lone Island) administrative organization (OrBorTor) member Siwakorn “Ibrahim” Chaipakdee, such craft are clearly a minority of those using the bay at any given time.

The majority numbers roughly 100 long-tails; 80 locally-owned fishing and diving boats; 50 foreign-owned dive and tour boats; and 200 speedboats.
In his opinion, while the operators of all the boats might welcome appropriate port facilities only the large foreign-owned dive boats would benefit from the proposed marina.

As it happens, the dive boat owners themselves see little in the plan. Even yachtsmen who moor in Chalong Bay are not keen on it.

So how was the plan arrived at? Not by talking with those who use the bay. Instead, the consultants’ report cites surveys, studies and mathematical models – the latter of prime importance – as the basis. Some information may have been flawed: dubious assertions are presented as fact.

For example: “In terms of natural beauty, and the quality of its unspoiled environment, number one in popularity on the Gulf of Thailand is Pattaya,” it notes, “followed by Koh Samui [and adjacent islands] and Koh Chang in Trat province….”

The consultants also insist that murky Chalong Bay – with its bottom of richly varied gunk, its several prawn farms and hundreds of boats – is virtually unpolluted. The report is notably silent regarding how statistical gathering was carried out.

It was determined, however, that, as far as marine-borne tourism is concerned, “environmental considerations outweigh anything on the engineering side in choosing a site for the project.”

Indeed, muddled attempts to protect the environment handicapped every phase of the engineering, as the consultants readily admitted during the June 5 meeting. Another consideration was that the marina “must not compete with private sector-owned facilities”.

On the important question of how the project would effect water flow in the bay – and the resulting impact on the environment – the report is vague. It references mathematical modeling at various scales, including the smallest at 50m x 50m covering the project site, but goes on to compare modeling results against actual measurements at a site in Krabi – not Chalong. From the report, there is no way to discern which of the three consultants carried out the modeling, nor how it was actually conducted.

Although many aspects of the project have been criticized by locals, the part that evokes

perhaps the greatest contempt is the siting of the southern breakwater.

“Our studies show that Chalong Bay’s protection from wind and waves is more or less perfect,” the consultants wrote. “In considering wave action over the last 50 years, we see that it is necessary only to construct breakwaters at the south and southeast.” To minimize environmental impact on the bay, which flushes to the south, the boat channel between the breakwaters is angled so that currents will be diverted as little as possible.

“Analysis shows that the breakwaters’ impact on currents will be quite small, hardly different from having no breakwater,” wrote the consultants. In this, their opponents agree. “It doesn’t happen much, but it happens every year that a strong swell comes from the south,” said OrBorTor Rawai’s Siwakorn, who has three fishing boats in the bay.

“If your boat is tied up at a mooring there’s no harm done – the boat turns on its mooring with nothing to beat against. But for boats berthed in slips, the case is different: they need protection from the swells – otherwise they’ll bang against the floating docks and be damaged; and some of these yachts cost millions of dollars. But the southern breakwater’s siting allows waves to enter the marina, which is bound to cause damage.”

Seafarer Divers owner Guy “Charlie” Lidureau, who has led the foreign community’s opposition to the proposal, was more specific: “In winter, there are two-meter swells; this channel opens to the south – which is where the waves come from!” he observed witheringly. Lidureau insists, based on 28 years’ experience operating out of Chalong Bay, that the southern breakwater is worse than useless: that it will funnel waves onto the beach, destroying embankments south of the pier. He also notes the proposed marina is far too small – it should have 800 - 1,200 berths “because 300 to 400 boats are already using the bay” and many operators would like berths.

“All hotels would be interested in a good marina,” he asserted, noting how current shortcomings at the pier cause tie-ups that play havoc with scheduling. He drew up a plan proposing breakwaters be paved over, connected to the shore, and broad enough for cars to park.

As those who use it know, the current pier area is heavily congested. There is insufficient parking and only one narrow access road. It has no speedboat ramps, and landings low enough for speedboats and long-tails to use are fixed, instead of reacting with the tide: they are thus largely useless, and in fact dangerous, as the lower stairs are covered with slimy, slippery weeds from constant immersion in seawater.

A particular sore point is the existing filling station: Lidureau’s 22-meter, 60-ton dive boat, Andaman Seafarer takes more than three hours to load a full 3,800-liter tank of fuel and its 7,000-liter water tank takes four to six hours to load, according to Lidureau. Long queues are the norm, moreover, because the filling station pier is too small.

To rectify these and other shortcomings, Lidureau drew up a plan of his own, resiting the channel entrance to the north and staggering the breakwaters to ensure quiet seas in the marina. The plan, which he passed round to some 80 persons both in government and in the private sector, engaged discussion and galvanized opposition by the latter. An informal meeting he arranged June 4 was attended by 22 senior provincial officials and tour boat operators.

“If I am made marketing manager of the Thai Dive Association, as I expect, we shall be even more active,” he said.

But reaction was so hostile during the June 5 meeting from local Thais – that is, from voters – the marina may be stillborn in whatever shape: “It seems the information we’ve heard [from the consultants] was unreliable,” said OrBorJor president K. Anchalee.

She suggested that re-drawing the plans may be necessary and would require a new budget. That, of course, will depend on a new government.
So the project completion date of Phase II is anybody’s guess. In the meantime, one can only wonder how the 44 berths and attendant facilities of the 70-million-baht Phase I will fare without a breakwater.