Live aboards are cool!

We got into Phuket around 2:30 local time and were met by a nice non-English speaking gentleman holding a sign with my name on it…our driver.  He took us to Khao Lak (town north of Phuket up the coast) where the boat was launching from.  The hotel we stayed in was Phu Khao Lak resort.  Nice enough place except: they have this slot on the wall where you put your keys when you are in the room.  That powers up the AC (and the power for that matter).  In other words, if you leave, the AC no workie.  Oh and the water pressure here is weak to say the least.  The water was stronger on the boat!  Other than that, the place is nice…and has a transvestite in a position of power (I think because he/she is one of the only ones who speaks English).  They directed “boy” to take our luggage to the room.  We had a good time thinking up crazy things “boy” had to do…poor guy.   

Turns out the key in the slot = power for your room trend continues in Patong.  Much nicer room and we have a key card instead of an old fashioned key…oh and a phone!  No phone at Phu Khao Lak (at least in the room).  Back to our story….

The liveaboard was pretty cool.  There were 13 paying customers and 4 dive masters.  We dove in a group of 3 (plus dive master Joa [pronounced yo-ah]…he’s Swedish) and we were all getting our advanced divers certification.  The other diver in our group was named Paper…yes…he was from Hong Kong with his wife…Wing.  We customers all got along really well.  One Frenchman who lives in Mali (lucky bastard!), 4 Aussies, 2 New Zealanders who live in Singapore, 2 from Hong Kong, and 2 from South Africa.  It was a good group to be stuck on a boat for 3 days with.  The dive masters were all super cool.  The days were pretty much: eat, dive, rest, eat, dive, rest, eat, dive, rest, maybe eat again.  We seriously had “light breakfast”, breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, and dinner wrapped around the dives we did.  It seems like we ate all the time…but the cooks were awesome and the food was great assuming you like Thai food.  Speaking of, if you DO like thai food in the states, that’s pretty much what Thai food here is like too.  Of course, if you ask for “hot” you might blister your tongue, but hey, life is there to live!  It did become almost a game for me wondering if the red or green peppers in the dish were chili peppers or not.  Take a bite and see.  Is your mouth on fire after a minute?  Yes?  Welcome to Thai chili peppers!  The breakfasts were western (bacon, eggs, etc) but the lunch and dinner were Thai and the snacks were usually fruit…MANGO!!

Our first dive was a wreck dive that was more to shake the rust off everyone than anything else.  Lots of Lion/Scorpion fish…some nudibranchs tons of fish.  It was pretty good.  The next dive was our Navigation dive (part of the advanced training).  We had to navigate underwater using a compass and using the terrain of the seabed.  We even had to do a square with a compass…swimming out, turning, swimming, turning, you get the idea.  That took up most of the dive.  We saw some neat stuff, but nothing great.  Of course, when we got on the boat, we heard the Aussies all saw mantas…that jerks.  Everyone was pretty jealous.  That night we did a night dive.  Also part of the training (although they would do a night dive anyway).  I have always been semi-scared about doing a night dive with visions of giant teeth being just out of range of the light ready to snap chunks out of me.  In reality, your field of view is limited even in day time due to the mask and the flashlights (or torches) really light up pretty well.  So it wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it would be and was a pretty cool dive.  Got to see moray eels out swimming around hunting and what not.  Night diving = cool!

Pics (click to embiggen...and then once you get to the slideshow, you can right click on an image and "open image in a new tab" to get the even bigger version.)

Honeycomb Moray Eel 

Lion Fish

Nidibranch (exposed gills are on the right side)

Blue spotted stingray.  We were crossing this sandy area going from one reef to another and this popped out of the sand right below me.  Scared the crap out of me...which is probably fair since I had scared him out of his hidey hole.

Moray Eel living in the wreck

A little note about our cabin.  Cramped doesn’t quite do justice.  It had bunk beds that were about 3 feet wide and 6.5 feet long.  I know this cause when I lay down on the inch thick mattress on the floor (also known as “lower bunk”) my feet were resting comfortably against the wall.  The cabin was maybe 2 feet wider with no storage and that was it.  Boom.  Cabin.  Put your bags on the bed when not using…put it on the floor when going to sleep.  It worked, but wasn’t comfortable.  The boat had 3 bathrooms, 2 had hot showers and you couldn’t flush paper products down the toilets so they had a little trashcan next to it.  Not the most pleasant, but one does what one must.

The next day we dove Richelieu Rock twice with the first being our “deep” dive (also part of the advanced training) where we went to 30m (98ish feet) before checking out other things.  Played a game down there to check for nitrogen narcosis (you feel tipsy).  The second dive was fish identification dive where we took pictures of all kinds of fish and then used books to accurately identify exactly what we saw.  Good dives, but man was it crowded.  Popular dive site out in the middle of nowhere.

Banded Sea Snake.  Saw one during the night dive too.  They are black and blue banded.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!  Run Away!  Run Away.  Its Sophia!!!!!

Devil Scorpion Fish.  Can you see it?  Its mostly centered and the head is facing the upper right corner of the photo.

Spotted Box Fish.  They are hilarious...and goofy looking swimmers.

While we had lunch, we headed out to Koh Tachai pinnacle which is a cone shaped area underwater just off the shore of Koh Tachai.  We dove there and as we were descending, the mantas showed up.  At least 2 mantas who stayed around frolicking with all the divers for pretty much the entire dive.  Our dive master was saying that hardly ever happens.  Usually they show up for 5-10 minutes and then head on back out.  These dudes swam in amongst us the entire time.  One passed overhead so close I could have reached up and touched it.  Very tempting, but we were under a strict no touch policy (as every diving should be) so I shot a picture instead.  I also got some video footage of them playing with us.  I learned I need to work on my framing but I was so excited, I was just happy to get the footage.  So awesome…and they were so big.  Easily 20 feet across from tip to tip.  The next dive was a sunset dive that included a turtle…which was cool but, let’s be honest, not as cool as MANTA!!!

Manta Ray!!!

More Manta!

So cool

Its coming right for us! (with its posse)

Getting buzzed by a Manta is awesome!

A Batfish

This is a slug of some sort.  Pretty cool looking, though

The final day started with an early dive where we were fighting against a current the entire time.  Not a lot of fun when you have to paddle your feet constantly to pretty much stand still.  Blew through air and didn’t really see all that much…but the Ausies did!  They saw mantas AGAIN!  We started giving them crap about not sharing.  Really nice people…had a good time with it.  The last dive was in the same area (Koh Bon if you care).  We dropped further up current in order to just drift which is much easier…and as soon as we were down: octopus!  Just sitting there on a rock…breathing…almost looked like a Devo hat.  Then we saw Napolean Wrasse which are LARGE fish.  This one was around 2 and a half feet long and was maybe half the size of a full grown one.  Then we saw a little fish called a fire dartfish that had this little thingy on top.  Pretty neat…then MORE MANTA!!!  This one was further out “into the blue” as they say…farther from shore and didn’t come in as close and we didn’t go out due to currents….but still it was awesome to see another one that was huge.  After the dive, the guides were commenting that rarely do people get 2 dives with mantas and the Aussies with 4 were super lucky…the bums.  All awesome tho.  Loved it.

Tons of Fish everywhere.  We descended into this flurry on one of the dives.

Octopus...you can see it taking a breath...

Napolean Wrasse...really cool fish.

Made it back to the dock, got out certification paperwork for the advanced open water course.  We actually have to get a picture (passport photo sized) and send it in ourselves…to Australia, but that can be done and we will get the official card.  All is good. 

Now we are in Patong for the next couple of days.  Just got here after a 2 hour cab ride.  WE are going to head out and explore and maybe get some lunch. 

Hope all are well!

Our time, the people’s time

Jim