We are about to head to the airport for Bangkok having done a day dive trip and a 2 day trip out to Phi Phi islands diving along the way and back. I think, for the sake of you dear readers, that I will split this up so you get 2 yes TWO posts out of the last 4 or 5 days. Thank me later…

Here we are in beautiful (but VERY hot and VERY humid) Patong. Lots of interesting things to see around here all within talking distance. The streets are littered with tailors, massage parlors, and stalls selling souvenirs ranging from t-shirts through wooden figures of happy Buddha. As you walk down any given street you are pretty much constantly assaulted with “boss, you need a suit?” or “massah?” (the “G” never spoken…and think high nasal-y voice). If you even glance in a souvenir stand, they start trying to cajole you into entering and buying. They even have a T-shirt that says “No, I don’t want a F*$*ing suit, taxi or a massage”. Its tempting to get one, but out of this context, people might not get it.

Strolling along the sidewalks you see the red skinned tourists who have been worshiping the sun on the beach all day. There are also “holy crap” tans going on, but most are almost lobster red. You have to feel for them…they will be hurting soon. The other oddity is seeing older men walking around with young Thai women. Surely not all of them are so, but I imagine most are lonely guy & prostitute (there are a lot of them [prostitues, that is] on the streets too).

Through some kind of karmic twist of fate, we are visiting during the elections here. Thai law dictates no sales of alcohol from 6PM the night before the election through midnight the day of. This is basically the two non-diving days we are here in Patong. You can see some restaurants are still serving…with the beer bottles tastefully covered with a koozie to provide the fiction they really aren’t beer, but the main places on Banlga Road are all closed. What’s Bangla Road, you ask? It is the reason they stole the “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” phrase and substituted Patong. Bars, go-go dancers, sex shows, ladyboys, craziness…you name it and it happens on Bangla Road…but not on these two days cause the election is going on!

That’s okay though. We had a good time and then it was time to dive again. This was a 3 dive trip out to Racha Noi and Racha Yai. I dove there with Marci back when I came here in 2005 and I thought it was pretty sparse then, but we saw a cuttlefish and that might have blurred the memory. Nope…it was pretty sparse. Not great dives although we did see octopus, a turtle, and I got a great shot of a nudibranch. Our dive guide was a let down after the live aboard. He half-heartedly pointed some things out but wasn’t really all that into it.

He did, however, give us good advice on our underwater photography about using white balance to get better pictures. Both Sophia’s and my camera are Cannon and they have this “underwater” mode that sort of does white balance correction (as you dive deeper, reds, yellows, oranges all fade out to blue/black…white balance corrects for that to give you cleaner looking pictures…you hope). In this case, both our cameras have white balance adjustment where you point your camera at something white (our palms in this case when we were underwater which made it look like we were taking pictures of our hands every now and then) click a button and then it adjusts its settings so whatever you show it looks white. In the case of diving, in general, its adding reds back in. Anyway, even though the dives might have not been the greatest, we at least came away with this learning and, I think, some pretty good pictures. I wish we had known of this for the Manta Rays…they wouldn’t have been so blue. Now, on to the photos!

We went to an Indian place that apparently caters to the lovers of women...didn't see any "penitarian" dishes listed. 

These are little fans on top of coral.  Really took this to practice the white balance thing.  This was taken in about 60 feet of water...but looks pretty crisp, no? 

Octopus.  Got some prettu cool video of it swimming away too.  It kept trying to find some place to hide and couldn't.  Sophia got a clip where it turned white for a brief moment.  Pretty cool.

Nudibranch cruising across the sand at about 80 feet.  Looks pretty good, huh?  The cluster of things sticking up on the lower right are its gills.  I guess I should have rotated this picture 90 degrees, but whatever.

Peacock flounder that Sophia saw as we were crossing this loooooong expanse of sand with pretty much nothing else on it.  Makes them easier to spot when there's nothing else to see.

Looking down inside a giant clam.  Pretty cool colorings....

Turtle!

Hope all are doing well.
Our time, the people’s time,
Jim