Back From Diving

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Hi Everybody, we are back from diving (Its me Trevor typing first, just in case you cant tell the difference between my typing and Courts)

So I will start from leaving ko lanta to khao lak, so khao lak is where our live-aboard departed from (or as we would find out where the dive shop was located) we had to take a van from ko lanta to krabi and then another one from krabi to khao lak. khao lak is just north of Phuket. So the bus ride to krabi was fine but then the bus to Khao Lak happened, well it was twisty twisty roads with high speed driving complete with a lack of A/C that resulted in some of the most nausea inducing couple of hours ever (so we thought).
We finally arrived at our hotel and it was amazing, it was just like a 5 star resort in Mexico. The bathroom was gorgeous with a nice shower and a separate bath tub, the bedroom had orchids strewn about it and the pool had a swim up bar (we actually never took advantage of any alcoholic beverages from there). So we got in early enough that the dive shop was still open and we met some of the dive masters and got a recommendation for some food and went for dinner.
The next day we had until 3pm until we left so we spent most of the morning sunning by the pool and then packed up and brought our stuff to the dive shop then explored the town a little. At 3 we met most of our other ship mates and took a minivan to Phuket to get to our boat (they store it there during the low season in a dry dock, this was the first trip out for the year). On the boat that night we all realized how rough a boat trip could be, you could barely stand because the boat was moving so much. Most of the boat got sick during the night at some point and we did not arrive to the islands until 6 am the next morning (in calm seas they get there around 3 or 4). Even the dive masters didn't sleep so we all didn't feel too bad.
The morning was a bit rough with everyone getting around 2-4 hours of sleep and still feeling the motion of the boat but we were greeted by two green sea turtles who thought our boat might be a good place to get a snack, so they enjoyed some bananas with us for breakfast.
We did 4 dives the first day, 4 dives the second day, another 4 dives the third day, and then two dives this morning. The dives were amazing the amount of sea life and the variety combined with the clarity of the water makes it an awesome place to dive. Most of our dives brought us to 30m slowly working our way back up to the surface, they lasted around 50-60 min. In the evening for our last dives on the first two days they were night dives which are really fun and you see a whole different set of animals and behaviors. The 3rd day we did a sunset dive and the fish go crazy around this time of night because the night ones are just waking up and the day ones are trying frantically to find a good hiding spot to sleep in.
So we got back today after two last dives and we spend tomorrow just relaxing and catching up on some much needed sleep (most nights we were up until 11pm and waking up at 6:30am combined with 4 dives and the nitrogen that accumulates in your system makes you very tired usually one of our dives each day was had a high current so we basically would swim a marathon on those) then we are off to Bangkok until we fly out the 29th.

See you all soon

Trev


Hi family and friends!

Wow, what a trip! That was definitely an experience of a lifetime, so amazing. So Trev told you about some of our Live-abord experience already, but I'll add some stuff too. I think he did a pretty good job explaining our first night on the boat. I honestly wanted to die. I had to crunch myself against the wall and the foot of the bed, so that I felt good and wedged in. It didn't stop the lurching and rocking, but at least I felt like I wouldn't fall out of bed. We both took lots of Gravol, but it's powers can only extend so far and monsoon season ocean swell dominated.

All of the dives were amazing. we started our dives in the south of the island chain, then worked our way north. Diving visibility for all sites was between 20-30 m. It was amazing to be 25m down at the bottom of a buoy line, look up, and still be able to see the surface. The variety and abundance of fish was fantastic! We saw innumerable number of butterfly fish species, several angelfish species, lots of different parrot fish and trigger fish and a whole bunch of others. One of my favorites was the Oriental Sweetlips: it has a black and white horizontal striped body and a yellow tail with black polka dots...proof to me that God has a sense of humor. I also always love seeing the little clown fish in their anemones. The Similan Islands are known for Manta Rays and Whale Sharks, but sadly we didn't see any on this trip - it's not the right season. We did, however, see a huge school of chevron barracuda. That wasn't the only story on that dive... We found the barracuda right at the end of our dive, when we should have been doing a safety stop, but how could we resist? We had been searching for barracuda on all the previous dives that day, so we followed the school for a bit. It was amazing seeing them all swimming together, there were probably 100 in the school. We followed for a bit, then stopped to start our safety stop before ascending. During the safety stop Trev RAN OUT OF AIR, so I got to save his life by sharing my backup regulator. Good thing he has a wife that's good at breath control, huh? I had plenty to share, so we were all good. Our dives this morning were at Koh Bon, an island that's about 2 hours north of the Similan chain. They were both really deep dives, but the corals were amazing. Huge fan corals and loads of soft corals in all different colours, so beautiful. On our first dive we found 3 leopard sharks! So exciting, they're so neat. One was even pretty close, which was great. The others were lying on the reef bottom, probably at 50m, so we couldn't get too close. Sigh...it was amazing, all of it. There were lots of great people on the boat, so it was an all around great experience. Good people, excellent diving, sunny weather, crystal clear blue water and powdery sand beaches.

We're looking forward to a day by the pool tomorrow.
Lots of Love,

Court

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