A friend of mine and I took this trip on one of the little long-tailed boats out of Phuket maybe 15 years ago.
We were on the boat getting to the island for about 3 hours. The views of the water, the little limestone islands and the coastline were incredible.
The actual island itself was a bit ho-hum. Nothing spectacular and just some tourist trinket stands and some snack bars (that could all be changed now).
On the way back we stopped at a little deserted island for an hour of swimming / snorkeling. This was about an hour and a half out of Phuket. After the swim, we reboarded the boat and arrived in Phuket just about dusk.
As we were getting off the boat, one of the passengers commented that he hadn't seen this older married Australian couple. As we discussed the situation, it became apparent that they must have missed the boat on the "swimming" island. All of a sudden, our Thai captain and mate, who spoke very good English throughout the trip, suddenly became mute and could not understand us. Someone contacted the authorities and a policeman came and after speaking to the Thai captain came and told us that the couple would be picked up TOMORROW when the boat makes the return trip from James Bond island.
As there was nothing we could really do at this point we returned to the hotel. I never did find out what happened to the couple as I had no contact info for them but for the next week I kept thinking about just how scary and uncomfortable it would be to be stranded on an uninhabited little island, in the Andaman sea, in the dark, with no food or water.
