Currently, tourists are having fun walking
on the buoys, but the city is putting larger gaps between the buoys to
discourage their use as anything but a barrier to separate swimmers from
boats and jet skis.
Warunya Thongrod
Pattaya marine officials have begun altering new buoys demarking
swimming areas to discourage people from taking dangerous walks on the
pontoons.
Following the recent drowning of a foreign tourist who police suspected
of having fallen off one of the flat, red-and-white buoys, workers began
separating the buoys with gaps large enough to allow rescue jet skis to
enter the area. Deputy Mayor Ronakit Ekasingh said it’s hoped the gaps
will remove any temptation for swimmers to walk on the floats.
The wide, red-and-white barriers replaced round orange buoys that marked
several locations along Pattaya and Jomtien beaches and have received
generally positive reviews from both beach-goers and boat operators. But
even before their installation was complete, questions began mounting
over the decision to use flat, wide, heavy-duty plastic. Several people
were injured while walking on the water fences never intended to be a
dock.
Swimmers near the Dusit Curve found the floating body of the
unidentified tourist March 16. Only one shoe and a mobile phone
belonging to him was found, so police were struggling to identify the
corpse. Although they had no basis in fact to back their assertions,
officers speculated the tourist had been drunk and went walking on the
buoys before falling off and drowning.
Italian tourist Danilo Mappei said he thought the buoy zoning in Pattaya
was good and very different than in his country. He did not think the
buoys was dangerous and that people were causing their own problems.
