Mixed Bag

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Phuket Scuba Club

Monday morning and we are up ridiculously early so we have time for breakfast before being picked up at 730 am for transfer to Chalong bay where I will meet my dive instructor Keith from Phuket scuba club and board the boat for today’s trip out to Racha Yai island.

Today was due to be a short day with the Island located only 90 mins by slow dive boat which we were on or about 20-30 mins by the usual speed boats in the area and only two dives on the agenda. On the journey out while we were still in calm waters I went downstairs with Keith and started setting up the gear. Thankfully with all the dreaming and studying I had undertaken in preparation for what I had thought was going to be the Open water (basic certification course) I was able to still recall how to put everything together and not make a total idiot of myself before even getting in the water.

Keith was a little surprised that I could still recall everything after being out of the water for so long, as he said he has had people that have just finished their course or have not dived for much shorter periods than me that have to be guided step by step to get their equipment put together. I was hoping that once we got into the water that I would continue making good impressions otherwise it was going to be a short trip.

Back on the top deck and out on the much rougher open water he gave me a rundown of the first dive and I tried to concentrate on not getting sea sick as well as the information he was giving. There are five dives you need to complete in order to be certified as a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver,2 compulsory (deep and navigation) and three electives. Seeing as I had not dived for so long he suggested I do Peak Performance Buoyancy as my first elective and dive so we could work out how much weight it would take to get my fat butt underwater again. Also because I have been out of the water so long he wanted to assess my abilities in recalling and performing the essential basics that all divers need regardless of experience including clearing water from a partially and fully flooded mask, recovering and clearing the regulator and a few other things that would let him know if I was up to the challenge of the next 2 days of diving.
Needless to say I was a little nervous when the time came to jump in the water because if I didn’t get it right on the first dive than I would not be continuing on the course.

Our first dive site was called Home Run, on reaching the bottom we found a nice sandy spot where through the use of a dive slate and hand signals Keith directed me to perform various skills in sequence until I had completed all the ones we had discussed on the surface, although a bit rusty I managed to perform all techniques to a satisfactory standard and we set off to enjoy the rest of the dive exploring the corals and marine life.

After 43 minutes and a max depth of 16.2 metres Keith was more than satisfied that I was up to the challenge and congratulated me on a good first dive and we started to talk about what was in store for the next one. The second dive would be the first of my compulsory dives, due to the location this would be the Navigation dive where I would be expected to navigate a straight line along a heading and back using a reciprocal heading for a specified distance as well as navigate a box pattern of a specified size using left turns for one box and right turns for another box.
Dive 2 took place in Bay 3 at Racha Yai and the fish life and coral are much the same as on Home Run. We reached a max depth of 15.8 metres for 38 minutes, once again Keith was happy with the way I was diving and congratulated me on a good first day back in the water.

Calm before the Storm

Waking up on day 2 I was less than impressed to find it was pissing down rain, after the way the seas were the day before I was hoping for better weather and it was not looking good.
Scheduled for today were the remaining three dives consisting of my remaining compulsory dive and 2 electives. First up was the Deep dive which was my remaining compulsory dive, making our way out to Koh Doc Mai we geared up while we were still in the shelter of Chalong bay and the seas were looking a lot calmer than we expected. Once out of the bay things were a lot calmer than the day before and although it was dark and overcast it was looking pretty good.

The first dive was going to be interesting because apart from being a deep dive site it was also a wall dive and drift dive at the same time. We hit the water and apart from the low visibility the first thing i noticed was the current, it was a lot stronger than I had thought it would be and certainly made it quite a challenge. We maxed out at 26 metres and did a comparison of a colour chart we had been looking at on the surface and then compared the chart with and without torch light at depth. After 30 minutes the deep dive had been ticked off and only 2 more to go.

The seas were getting a bit rougher as we were heading for our second stop and I was starting to not feel so good but was determined to get through the day. Our second dive of the day was to be wreck diving and one of the elective dives I had chosen, mainly because of the sites that were on the agenda for the boat that day.
King Cruiser Wreck is what remains of the passenger ferry which was carrying 600 passengers when it struck the reef and sank in 1997 and has made a spectacular dive site ever since. Visibility here was around 7-8 metres in all directions which was better than the 5 metres we had at Koh Doc Mai. The wreck was awesome as it came in to view as was the abundance of coral and marine life that now call the ship home and it was definitely my favourite stop of the day. We maxed out at 26 metres again for 30 minutes and surfaced feeling pretty happy and relaxed.

On the short trip back to Shark Point our third and last stop for the day the seas had become rougher again and I was really starting to feel green now. It was touch and go but I managed to make it in for the final elective dive which was a multi-level dive, again chosen for the location we were in. Starting off at 22 metres we were enjoying the marine life and searching for leopard shark’s which is where this site gets its name.

I was feeling quite unwell as I mentioned and while under water developed an urge to go to the toilet and it was getting more and more urgent as time went on and I chewed through a bit of air because of it so we were not under for as long as planned. Upon surfacing the seas had gotten rougher again and I really needed to go. This is where it all went horribly wrong, after letting it all drain from the bottom end I went to stand up and that’s when I started to vomit. I lost track of time but it was about 20 mins later when I came out. All the other divers had been picked up, Keith had packed up all of my gear for me and we were motoring back to Chalong.

I was feeling a bit better and thinking I had got it all out of my system when we hit a storm cell which had brought with it 3 metre swells and that was that back in the toilet and that was my new home for the hour and a half or so that it took to get back to the bay.

Feeling better once we reached calmer waters I was able to get some air and by the time we got to the dock I was feeling pretty good. We got back to the shop and Keith and I sat down to review the two days of diving and complete the final steps needed before he could officially certify me as an Advanced Open Water Diver. All done and he handed me my temporary card and congratulated me while we had a beer and waited for Colli. Colli arrived and it was about this time I started to feel sick again and also started to realise that it was not just sea sickness.

After having to cut the night short we made it back to the hotel where I spent a large portion of time throwing up. Turns out I had a slight touch of food poisoning mixed with sea sickness which after finally getting some sleep seems to have settled down.

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