A ship graveyard of impounded boats - photo set

dispatches (59)in #photography • 5 years ago

When foreign-flagged ships are caught illegally fishing in Thailand's territorial waters, the crew are arrested and the boat impounded. I found this out recently when cruising around on a motorbike on the Thai island of Koh Chang. From the road, I saw a bunch of half-submerged boats in the sea and I stopped to take a look. The boats were behind the headquarters of the National Park office and one of the rangers there explained it to me. Basically, they get tasked with taking the boats, and they just leave them there to rot. This surprised me a bit because these boats are surely worth money. Sure enough, though, they just leave them there.

The rangers weren't very friendly but they didn't mind me climbing onto the sunken ships and playing around taking some photos. It's a pretty cool place.