The Bay of Bangkok, here a small fraction seen from NaJomtien (in Thai actually Najom Thian) towards the West, off shore

This picture was taken from the B2 SeaView Hotel in NaJomtien Soi 14, November 2025.

End of November 2025.
A friend was visiting me and we were not sure how to spend the three weeks he planned to stay in Thailand.
 
I suggested that he tries to learn windsurfing. He is a pretty open-minded person so he agreed. And since I am experienced wind surfer I was more than willing to support him.
 
I found a place not too far from Bangkok where I am based. About 10 to 15 km south of Pattaya or 110 km south of Bangkok.
 
They have rental places for all kind of water sport equipment.
 
Other than predicted there was not much wind at the beach itself but enough wind at least for my friend to start learning windsurfing.
 
At the beach and around I was told that as long as the wind is that much offshore as it was it would not be very strong at this very location. But things might change any day, so we continue to stay and on the second day I even rented a windsurfing kit to see if after more than 20 years without windsurfing I still could do it. Since I hit the gym multiple times a week I was at least sure to be still strong enough, being well into my 50s.
 
A bit away from the beach the wind picked noticeable up and with the huge board and a 5.5 m² sail I could move around nicely trying to keep an eye on my friend to guide him through his first steps.

Another view on another November 2025 day from Jomtien towards Koh Larn

Before Jomtien got my attention Mui Ne in Vietnam is what I found to be the spot for windsurfing especially (but for all the other wind related water sports as well).
At least according to the statistics it has a high probability of every day wind provided by the strong Northeast monsoon along the Vietnamese coast line.
 
But from Bangkok it would be so much more difficult to reach. Getting to the airport, flying almost 1.5 hours and then another two enough hours in the taxi to get to Mui Ne. So in the end it’s a full day’s trip.
 
So we opted to check out this spot at Jomtien Beach, with a good taxi driver less than two hours away from my Bangkok home. The taxi for this slightly above 100 km trip can be anywhere from 1200 up to 1700 Baht, depending on the taxi driver and if expressway fees are included or not. The bus to Pattaya would be 131. Plus close to 200 baht for the taxi ride from the Pattaya bus station to the actual windsurfing spot. And of course you need to get to the bus station that brings you from Bangkok to Pattaya.

B2 Seaview Hotel Najomtien 14

Conveniently located, very close to beach, very nice staff, floors 6-8 come all with seaview, Rooms start from around 600 Baht/night

Back then, end of October 2025 I basically used windfinder.com to check if the wind is suitable for water sports. Windfinder always showed a lot of wind in the daytime practically exceeding 10 kn every day from some northeastern direction. Lacking any experience I did not waste time doing more research, we booked a taxi and headed out from Bangkok to Jomtien beach. For the door to door trip we paid 1700 Thai baht.
 
Initially we planed to stay two nights and booked see view rooms in the B2 see view Hotel, about 300 m away from the beach and 200 m away from the windsurfing rental shop.

A windsurfer doing his first steps with a beginner friendly sailing set

This beach is just perfect for beginners: warm water, warm air, every day during the winter season hours of light wind ideal to learn

With noticeable progress my friend made we decided to stay longer until the forecast would change to less or no wind at all.
 
On the fourth day my friend became adventurous. I tried to guide him the best as I could but in the end he drifted away, far away from the beach and since the wind 500-2,000 m away from the beach was quite strong I had to deal with myself. I was on the way back to the beach to pick up some harness and lines to make sure I could handle the wind without using mom strength too much.
 
The very well English and russian speaking windsurfing teacher of the wind surfing rental shop and me talked about my friend being only a small dot in the distance. Concern grew with the staff of the shop and we decided to alert a jet ski year to bring back my friend who certainly could not get back to the beach by himself.

During the winter season you can see whitecaps often - somewhere

Directly from the beach you need good eyes to see them. From the upper floors of the B2 hotel it is pretty easy to spot the whitecaps - sometimes closer and sometimes further away from the beach.

More Whitecaps

Here the white caps can be seen from the beach directly. They are about 1.3 km away. The platform for kite surfers is about 1.5 km away (left hand side of the picture).

So now we are here at the Gulf of Thailand with the other side being about 200 km away from here. We also have offshore wind conditions. Not directly offshore but the wind does not get you back to anywhere near the beach you started from.

We still could see my friend but the experienced water sports teacher was concerned and decided that it was time to get in some rescue.
Rescue means to send out a jet ski to bring back people who cannot come back by themselves to the beach. Cost for bringing back people is starting at about 500 baht. So that’s really absolutely okay.
After having done the phone call which alerts the JetSki guy it took less than 20 minutes to get my friend back to the beach.

At this point I was sure that this would never happen to me. I still did not understand the risks involved windsurfing under offshore wind conditions. Coming from lakes in the South Germany where I learned windsurfing there was always some protection against drifting off and losing sight to land.

Kite Surfers about 2 km away from the beach

Whilst little wind at the beach only the experienced locals go out together to enjoy higher winds.