Diving in the similans in the andaman ocean has to rank as one my top lifetime experiences ever.
It's hard to put into words the sheer sense of wonder having seen first hand so much life underwater life in such a short space of time.
We began the trip a week ago now... we were taken from our little town in Phuket, a sleepy place called Chalong, and driven an hour or so north to the Thai mainland to a small port on the west coast. Via the airport to pick up the other divers who were to be our companions for the next 3 nights and 3 days... 5 Japanese divers, 4 guys and 1 lady, fresh in from there homeland, complete with there own kit and as is the typical sterotype lots of cameras...
We boarded the vessel "Harmony" at around 10pm, and we set off on the 6 hour voyage to the similan islands, far out into the andaman sea to the west.
The ship itself was about 25 meters long, with 3 floors, the first being our cabin areas, the loos, the galley and the dive deck, the second being the recreation area with TV, Dining/Briefing area, Bridge and Crew quarters, and the third being the roof, solarium, clothes drying area...
We we're roused from our sleep the following day at about 6.45am and prepared ourselves for our first dive... Sea sickness tablets taken, the rocking and swaying of the ship was a little unsettling at first, but after a while the 'sea legs' kick in and it becomes normal...
I won't go into details about each dive, but all in all we managed 10 separate dives over the 3 days, including 1 night dive, and numerous Deep dives (18 meters plus) - the deepest being around 35 meters... for the most part the visibility ranged from 5 meters to about 20 meters plus. And we visited about 6 separate dive sites, including the much famed Richelue Rock - which is literally in the middle of nowhere, with no land to be seen - quite a strange feeling jumping into open water with nothing to be seen for miles around...
Anyway... to cut a long story short it was ace.
Managed to go from crap diver with only 4 real dives (in a quarry) to a diver with now 14 dives under my belt, and in a location that's quite simply breathtaking. My first dive was well ropey, over breathing, crap bouancy control, quite anxious and nervous... byu the time we did the final dive my confidence had improved and skills to boot... I feel like a diver now... and I've passed my Advanced... which is great...
Simon's well on the way to staring his Dive Master training now, so he's chuffed too...
As far as aquatic life - loads of fish and stuff, loads of various types of coral, anemones, jelly fish, sharks, turtles, manta rays, sting rays, Trigger fish, clown fish (as in finding nemo), groupers (ugly but friendly) you name it... highlights being manta rays making an appearance round the boat earlier yesterday (we jumped in for a quick snorkel with them... graceful... and massive... 2 of them... about 3-4m's across... maybe bigger) and the other was swimming with a shoal... and I'm talking hundreds here... of meter long barracuda... totally mind blowing... I can't express how utterly incredible it's been...
It's difficult to fully explain and I'm incredibly honoured, it's just been quite magical. On the down side I got stung loads of times by small jelly fish and cut my fingers a bit (neither being too bad... the stings are like nettles... nothing a bit of wee wee can't sort out...) my fingers were cut whilst hanging onto a reef whilst gazing down into an abyss with a really strong current trying to push us back up and out...at like 25 meters under... which in recreational diving terms is deep... the deepest we've been was this yesterday when we dived down this coral pinnacle that starts at 20 meters below the surface and descends a long long way down... beyond 40 meters the limit set for recreational diving... beyond that is 'technical'.
I've learnt to stay away from various things too... like fire coral... urchins... and scorpion fish... beautiful but deadly... I shared a crevice with one whilst taking a peek at a tiny seahorse... the scorpions tend to stay static so it was ok... nevertheless quite nerve racking...
anyway... enough blathering on about diving...
If you ever get a chance to go diving then I'd thoroughly recommend it... especialy in tropical coral oceans...
What a blast!
Of to Ko Samui and Ko Tao for some more...
See you on the surface!
1 comment:
Hey you lovely people - after getting the url to this blog from Pete the other day, I've been reading a bit and looking at the pretty pictures. Oh the envy :D But then again, I reckon I'd be more at home with packing up and doing a more permanent move to somewhere exotic. I reckon we will at some point, as well (I still fancy New Zealand. Not too cold, not too too hot.. maybe a bit heavy on the rain, but what the hell, at least there's gorgeous countryside to explore). In a few years' time perhaps ^_^
Lots of love from Denmark, hope you're all good, looking forward to more piccies! :)
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