Evacuation Navy Boat

Well, the situation here is BBC news worthy now.
The Thai government sent in an aircraft carrier this morning to get stranded people off the island.
As I have been saying, there has been constant rain for 5 days, some of it torrential for hours and hours.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12903505
As time goes by more and more stories are coming from people who were on other parts of the island about the floods, some were really bad.
We have heard that Koh Samui has no flights in or out and there have been floods there and all over Thailand.
Many shops and businesses here were totally ruined, stories of flooding 4 foot high and shop windows being blown in by the force of the water.
The main problem is that there has been no boats to or from Koh Tao for 4 days now and all supplies to the island come from the mainland.
So, shops have no fresh food, electricity is supplied by gasoline and that is running very short.
There are many places without electric all day and running on a few generators at night.
7 ELEVEN has closed as all the fridges and freezers went down and with no air con the place stank and all the fresh food was rotting. The place was in a right state.
It was chaos as locals and back packers alike were buying up supplies.

A funny story is of the night of the flooding, some English guys were floating down the main high street on li lows with beers in their hands lol!

So, back to the evacuation, around 1,500 backpackers queued this morning to be taken off the island by the one and only Thai Navy aricraft carrier.
Many of them were there from 6am as it was said the boat would leave around 9am.
Well, by midday there was still no way of getting people to the ship as the sea was too rough for small boats and winds too high for the helicopters.
There were hundreds of peple lined up along the pier and sitting on their back packs trying to shelter from the rain as far as the eye could see.
About 1pm there were a couple of small boats that started taking about 20 people at a time the 4km to the ship, it was going to be a long day.
Then the helicopters began taking women and children only to the ship.

Frans and I watched the day unfold having decided that we would stick around here for a couple more days and not be one of the many hundreds trying to leave at the same time.
As it turned out, by night fall many of the people who had waited patiently all day did not leave as they could not be transported in the dark.
There were many girls crying with frustration and many others generally pissed off and tired and now having to face findng rooms for the night and spending money they dont have.
It really is an historical event, locals saying it they have never known rain like it - even in the rainy season!