Patong Bay is the busiest tourist beach on Phuket, boasting hundreds of hotels ranging from 5-star resorts to lowly budget guesthouses, a great variety of restaurants and a vibrant and surprising nightlife.
Supermarkets and fresh food markets sell provisions, though prices are naturally higher here in ‘tourist-land’ than in Phuket City.
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18 miles from Ao Chalong
The gradually sloping sandy bottom permits anchorage in 5‑20 metres anywhere in this broad bay. To the south end of Patong bay is a fixed jetty and a floating jetty which is used during the high season as a transit point for the growing number of visiting superyachts and cruise ships.
Dinghies can generally be left unguarded near the police post in the centre of the beach.
Patong is the busiest bay on the west coast, particularly around Christmas, New Year and April’s Songkran water festival. It’s also the main high season anchorage for cruise ships, liveaboard dive boats and superyachts.
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17 miles from Ao Chalong
Anchor in 8-10 metres on a sandy bottom off one of the three beaches. The westerly one, Paradise Beach, used to be highly commercialised but has become more relaxed since Phuket’s beaches were ‘cleared up’ and beach businesses outlawed.
The three beaches are a favourite daytime excursion for longtails operating from the main Patong beach. Many divers and snorkellers come to enjoy the underwater sights within easy range of the beach facilities of Patong.
Further along to the east, the long strip of sand is Tri Trang Beach which fronts the prestigious Rosewood Resort; there’s a road into Patong accessed from western end of the beach. This is a good night stop if a southwesterly swell is running early or late in the season.
19 miles from Ao Chalong
In the north of Patong Bay, Thavorn Beach Village resort has a concrete jetty extending beyond the drying fringe coral. Many yachts are forced to shelter here late in the season when the westerly ground swell gets uncomfortable.
19 miles from Ao Chalong
Just inside the northernmost point, this bay has a steep coral shelf rising from a sandy bottom in about 12 metres. Lots of colourful corals and fish await the underwater explorer. Access to the beach, now overlooked by a villa development, is best at high water.
19 miles from Ao Chalong
This mere indentation in the headland affords shelter for one or two boats. Anchor in about 15-20 metres on a sandy bottom with scattered coral in front of the residential villas. In the corner of the bay you’ll find a spring which is accessible by dinghy – bring your jerry cans. However, the spring often dries up by the end of the dry season, so don’t rely on it.
