Ao Po Grand Marina (Phuket)

Where the marina actually sits

The marina's own coordinates place it at 08 degrees 04.075 minutes north, 098 degrees 26.739 minutes east, in a bay north of Ao Po village in Tambon Paklok, roughly at the northern end of Phuket. That single fact, northeast coast rather than the west-facing beaches most visitors picture when they think of Phuket, is the reason the marina exists where it does. Phuket's west coast, from Patong down to Nai Harn, faces the open Andaman Sea and takes the southwest monsoon head on for half the year; the anchorages there become unusable for that stretch, according to Sunsail's own Phuket sailing guide. The northeast coast does not.

That coast is shared with the island's other serious marine infrastructure: Phuket.Net's own marina round-up lists Ao Po alongside Yacht Haven Marina at Laem Phrao and Phuket Boat Lagoon at Ao Sapam as the three facilities on this protected shore, against Royal Phuket Marina's tide-restricted basin further south. Ao Po's specific advantage inside that cluster is what lies beyond it: Phang Nga Bay's limestone karst islands begin more or less at the marina's doorstep, which is why both Sunsail and The Moorings run their Phuket bareboat and crewed charter operations out of Ao Po rather than anywhere else on the island.

The berth count the marina cannot agree with itself on

Ao Po Grand Marina's About Us page states plainly that the marina grew from an original 200 berths at its 2008 opening to a current 230, and the Facilities page repeats 230 berths for vessels up to 499 tons. That is corroborated independently by Southeast Asia Pilot, the cruising guide, which separately counts approximately 230 berths inside the rock breakwater. Set against that: Dockwalk's marina listing, Superyachts.com's own summary page, Phuketmarineguide, and a 2018 Thaiger news report all give 300 berths and vessels over 100 m, and Ao Po's own press and marketing material, on pages elsewhere on aopograndmarina.com, repeats the 300-berth, 100-plus-metre figure rather than the 230 its own facilities page states. Two documents from the same operator, on the same website, disagree with each other; Yotters is not going to average them.

The formal specification fields carried by Dockwalk and Superyachts.com, rather than the prose, both give a maximum length of 80 m, a beam of 15 m and a draft of 7 m, which reads as the marina's actual working ceiling for a standard berth rather than the round 100-plus-metre figure used in marketing copy. The 499-ton cap is the more telling number of the two. As Boat International has written about the wider industry, 499 gross tons sits deliberately just under the 500 GT line that trips stricter international survey, crewing and safety rules, and yards increasingly design boats to land just under it for exactly that reason; a marina built to a 499-ton ceiling is built to fit that specific, common class of large yacht rather than to some larger, unqualified number.

The marina's own facilities page says 230 berths. The marina's own marketing copy, one click away on the same site, says 300 berths for boats over 100 metres. Nobody at Ao Po has reconciled the two.

Who actually funded it, and the case that still shadows the name

The marina's own About Us page credits Premchai Karnasuta and a group of Thai partners as the private funders behind the 2008 project, alongside the late managing director Kasem Chiarasomboon as the planner behind its concept, and names Kevin Quilty, with more than 30 years in the Thai marine industry, as the current marina manager. That corporate history sat quietly in the background until February 2018, when Premchai was arrested with firearms and the carcasses of a rare black leopard, a Kalij pheasant and a barking deer at a campsite inside Thungyai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, according to Newsweek's reporting on the case. Thailand's Supreme Court upheld his conviction on 8 December 2021, sentencing him to three years and two months in prison plus a fine of about 2 million baht (roughly USD 59,700), and Newsweek's account notes he was taken directly to serve it, a genuinely unusual outcome for a wealthy Thai businessman in that legal system.

The marina itself was drawn into the same news cycle. The Thaiger reported that on 18 February 2018, two weeks after Premchai's arrest, Thailand's Marine and Coastal Resources Department announced an investigation into whether Ao Po Grand Marina Co Ltd had encroached on mangrove forest and public seabed at Ao Po bay, and whether the operator held proper Harbour Department licensing; the department's director general stated the inquiry followed complaints from local residents rather than the poaching arrest, and named Premchai as a major shareholder in the marina company. Yotters searched for a published outcome of that inquiry through a domain-scoped search and general web search and found none; if it was closed out, that resolution was not made public anywhere this research could reach, and a prospective berth holder who cares about the point should ask the marina directly.

Getting there, and getting in by sea

Road-routing data from Rome2Rio puts the drive from Phuket International Airport to Ao Po Pier at around 21 to 30 minutes depending on the exact route and time of day; Sunsail's own Phuket guide, by contrast, advertises the marina as just 15 minutes from the airport, which reads as the optimistic end of a range rather than a typical transfer. Either way, this is a genuinely short hop for a Southeast Asian superyacht base, and a materially easier connection than the multi-hour road transfers some regional rivals require.

Southeast Asia Pilot's cruising notes are specific about the approach: come in from the south or east to avoid Hin Klang, an unmarked rock awash on the northerly line in, and if approaching from the east hold a track of 260 degrees in (80 degrees out) to clear isolated coral bombies off the north fringing reef of Naka Yai island. The entrance itself, about 50 m wide, sits behind a rock breakwater on the southeast side of the bay and carries no tide restriction, so arrival timing is a matter of daylight and weather rather than the clock. Call the marina on VHF channel 69, which both the marina's own site and Southeast Asia Pilot describe as monitored around the clock; a dockside team meets the boat and check-in follows at the marina office. Sunsail separately lists VHF channel 72 for its own Phuket charter desk during office hours, which is the charter company's operational channel rather than the marina's.

Clearing into Thailand, and the one thing this marina cannot do for you

The Phuket Yacht Control Centre occupies a two-storey building at the end of Chalong Pier, with the harbour master, immigration and customs offices adjacent to one another inside it, according to The Captain and the Cook's cruising account of the process. It operates 09:00 to 15:00 with a lunch closure from 12:00 to 13:00, and boats need three passport copies per crew member, vessel registration copies, photographs showing the boat's name, the last port's clearance papers and an MMSI certificate; AIS is mandatory for every foreign yacht entering Phuket. By road, Ao Chalong sits about 34 km, and around 35 to 40 minutes, from Ao Po, so a yacht arriving from open water has to choose between clearing at Chalong first and then relocating to Ao Po, or anchoring at Ao Po and arranging transport back across the island to complete the paperwork; either way it is an extra leg that a marina doubling as a port of entry would not require.

The fee tables published for that clearance do not agree with each other. One set of figures, summarised from Superyacht Services Guide and phuket.com-linked sources, gives immigration at 300 baht plus 10 baht per passenger, customs free on arrival and 100 baht on departure, and the harbour master 100 baht on departure only. The Captain and the Cook's own worked breakdown gives materially higher numbers: harbour master 500 baht on both weekdays and weekends, immigration free on weekdays but 520 baht on weekends and public holidays, and customs free to 800 baht clearing in and 200 to 1,000 baht clearing out, again depending on the day. Yotters is not going to average two tables that differ by a factor of several; budget for an agent's quote rather than either printed figure. A temporary import permit runs six months initially and can be extended up to four times, for a maximum stay of two and a half years, and Thai immigration is moving to a mandatory pre-arrival Thailand Digital Arrival Card for all foreign nationals.

What a berth actually costs

The marina's own Berth Reservations page asks a prospective visitor to submit an online reservation request in advance and, on arrival, to call the marina office on VHF channel 69 for a berth assignment, after which a dockside team meets the boat and check-in is completed at the office. Nowhere on that page, or on the Facilities page beside it, is a daily, monthly or annual rate quoted. Dockwalk's listing, the Southeast Asia Pilot cruising guide entry and the booking platform 2yachts.com all carry the same gap: full specification fields for length, beam, draft and VHF, and no price field filled in. That is consistent enough across independent sources to treat as a genuine absence rather than a research failure: get a written quote before committing to a season.

What is published are the utility numbers rather than the tariff. Shore power runs up to 400 amps at the largest berths, water is metered and reverse-osmosis filtered to every berth per the marina's own site, and the fuel dock pumps Shell V-Power diesel at up to 400 litres a minute plus Shell 95 gasohol, a deep-water facility the marina itself describes as usable in both the northeast and southwest monsoon seasons; Yotters found that last claim in charter-industry route guides as well as the marina's own copy, but could not find a second, fully independent confirmation of the exact tank capacity behind it, so that specific figure is left out here. Haul-out is genuinely capable for a boatyard this size: an 80-ton Roodberg trailer lift to 100 ft LOA and 3.4 m draft, and a smaller 47-ton lift to 60 ft and 2.1 m draft, on a site with a 60-space hardstand.

The monsoon calendar, and the window everyone actually works around

Sunsail's own Phuket planning guide lays out the two seasons in practical terms: the northeast monsoon runs November through April with force 2 to 4 winds, temperatures around 30 degrees C, dry conditions and, weather permitting, access to the Similan Islands; the southwest monsoon runs May through October with stronger, gustier force 2 to 6 winds from the southwest, afternoon rain squalls of one to two hours, and extended wet spells of up to five days in September and October. West-coast anchorages become unusable for that whole stretch, which is exactly why a base on the sheltered northeast coast, at Ao Po, keeps working when the west side of the island does not. Tidal range across the season runs from half a metre to more than 3 m with two highs a day, and both Sunsail and The Moorings require Level 2, intermediate, sailing experience for their bareboat charters, with no night sailing permitted, boats anchored by sunset.

The Similan Islands closure is the fixed date that actually structures a season built around this marina, because it is the single destination the whole northeast-monsoon window exists to protect. Thailand's national parks department closes Mu Ko Similan National Park for five months a year for ecosystem recovery and monsoon safety; Nation Thailand and the Phuket boating press both confirm the 2026 closure runs from 15 May to 15 October. Separately, Ao Po Grand Marina was one of two Phuket bases, alongside Phuket Yacht Haven Marina, that hosted the Australia-Thailand Rendezvous on 22 and 23 January 2026, according to Marine Business News, which put more than 22 vessels, including the 70 m M/Y Alfa, 55 m M/Y Azamanta and 45 m M/Y Berzinc, in front of Australian marine-industry visitors, with Ao Po's own Kevin Quilty supporting the event alongside Phuket Yacht Haven's manager Daniel Srimongkol.

What is genuinely next door, and what the people who have actually berthed there say

Inside the gate, Port of Call restaurant runs breakfast through dinner, 08:00 to 22:00, and d'deck bar serves from 17:00 to 21:00 with a happy hour from 17:30 to 18:30, backed by a clubhouse pool, gym, sauna and 24-hour security, all per the marina's own facilities page. Beyond the pontoons, the marina sits at the edge of Phang Nga Bay, and Koh Panyee, the Muslim fishing village built entirely on stilts over the bay and a standard stop on every James Bond Island tour, is reachable within the same bay run most charter guests already make. Six Senses Yao Noi, the resort on Koh Yao Noi, is a 35 to 45 minute speedboat ride from the marina's own pier, per the resort's own directions and independent travel coverage, which makes it a realistic lunch or overnight run rather than an aspirational one.

Tom and Nancy Zydler, the cruising writers who captained and crewed the 94 ft expedition yacht Whale Song on a round-the-world voyage documented in Yachting and Passagemaker magazines, are named in the marina's own testimonials as praising the help they received finishing refit projects and provisioning while berthed at Ao Po, singling out the marina's local knowledge of which fresh markets to use. That is marketing material, so it is worth weighing against independent evidence: Google reviews aggregated by Wanderlog give the marina 4.5 out of 5 across 352 ratings, with visitors repeatedly naming Marina Manager Kevin Quilty and reception staff for going out of their way, including one account of reception arranging a Saturday immigration appointment so a departing captain could fly home on schedule. The one recurring negative theme in that same review set is specific and structural rather than nautical: the property restricts ride-hailing apps such as Bolt from entering, which one reviewer said forced a walk of more than 500 metres with luggage past taxi touts who reportedly laughed at guests who turned them down.

What is wrong with it

Start with the numbers, because they are the marina's own. The About Us and Facilities pages on aopograndmarina.com say 230 berths and a 499-ton cap; other pages on the identical domain, and most third-party marina directories, say 300 berths and yachts over 100 m. A buyer cannot tell from the marina's own website which figure to plan around. Layered on top of that is the corporate history: Premchai Karnasuta, the construction magnate who privately funded the marina's 2008 build and was named a major shareholder in its operating company as late as 2018, was convicted that same period of poaching a protected black leopard inside a UNESCO wildlife sanctuary and served prison time for it, a genuinely rare outcome that made international news. The marina company itself was separately investigated in February 2018 for encroaching on mangrove forest and public seabed at Ao Po bay; Yotters could not find any published resolution of that inquiry through a domain-scoped search or general web search, and an owner who cares about the point should ask the marina directly rather than assume it was resolved quietly.

The practical gaps compound the reputational ones. No berth tariff is published anywhere this research could reach, so budgeting a season means getting a written quote first, every time. The marina is not a Thai port of entry, so every arrival has to route through Chalong Pier, 34 km away, and the two published fee tables for that clearance disagree by a wide margin, from roughly 400 to 500 baht in one account to 500 to over 2,000 baht in another for the same set of offices. And a specific, oddly petty inconvenience shows up repeatedly in recent Google reviews: ride-hailing apps are kept off the property, which turns a routine trip out for anyone without a car into a walk past insistent taxi touts. None of that outweighs a genuinely capable, well-run, all-tide superyacht base on the right side of the island for Phang Nga Bay; it does mean treating the marina's own marketing copy, and its own history, with the same scrutiny Yotters would apply to anyone else's.

Who it is for: An owner or charter operator who wants a genuine, all-tide superyacht base within a short run of Phang Nga Bay and the Similan Islands' November-to-April window, and who is prepared to clear customs 34 km away at Chalong and get every price by direct quote rather than off a rate card.