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December 18th 2006
Published: December 18th 2006
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We did it! We passed our Advanced Open Water certification today, and are mighty proud of ourselves. We now are official members of PADI, and can dive anywhere in the world to the maximum recommended recreational depth of 40m. Hooray!

Today was an amazing adventure, and one I'm sure will stand out from the many made on this trip. We visited three different dive sites in the same area, all vastly different from each other. The first was King Cruiser, a passenger/car ferry which sunk in 1997 carrying 600 people. Don't worry, no one died here, and the unofficial story is that it was sunk on purpose as the insurance was due in 3 days and this is Thailand after all. This was our "deep" dive, and we descended to 30m. Some people experience "nitrogen narcosis" at this depth, which is the intoxicating effects of too much nitrogen in your body (the air you breath from the tanks is a nitrogen/oxygen mix). This can lead to foolish behavior and a false sense of security, we've heard and read more than our share of people getting "narced" and trying to feed their regulator to a fish or turtle (the regulator is the mouthpiece which you breath through). At the surface our instructor gave us a small task to do and he timed us, pointing to the numbers 1-20 on a board. We had to complete this task again at 30m to see how our brains were reacting. We both did well, only completing the task a few seconds slower at the depth. Neither of us felt the narcosis either, although after performing the task we rose back up to ~22 meters to explore the ship. It is quite an eerie experience to be floating around a sunken ship, competely covered in coral, sea urchins and fish. We were quite lucky and spotted a large sea turtle heading into a cavern in the ship, our instructor told us he had well over 100 dives before he saw his first turtle.

There was a small "swim through" which we knew about and felt confident to try. It was a window or doorway in the ship, and your buoancy needs to be perfect to avoid the sharp metal edges and dangerous lionfish which cover the area. I unfortunately rose up a bit while swimming through the doorway and my leg was stung by a sea urchin. It stung for approx 10 minutes after and then went away. When we surfaced it had turned into a little black bruise. I didn't feel so bad when our instructor showed me his hand and he had also been stung.

The second dive was at Sharkpoint, which was a short boat ride away. This one was phenomenal. As soon as your head went below the surface you were practically on top of the reef below you. This was by far the most beautiful reef I've ever seen, there were schools of fish, waving anemones and coral everywhere. Again we were quite lucky and saw a HUGE barracuda swim by right in front of us. It must have been 3 or 4 feet long, really really huge. The teeth on it were massive. It was swimming in a school of medium size fish, so it was probably trying to feed off them. Our instructor pointed it out and then told us to quickly swim out of the area. They aren't normally dangerous, but this one was quite a bit larger than most. Really huge.

The schools of fish don't even seem to notice you, they gather around you and continue swimming, you can feel them nibbling at your face or arms occassionally. It's such a surreal experience.

The third dive was at Koh Doc Mai, which is a rocky upthrust in the middle of the ocean. It's known as a "wall dive", as all sides of the rock is covered with corals and fish. There are so many little nooks to look inside and see small critters living, it was amazing. The highlight of this dive was seeing two spotted leopard sharks resting on the ocean floor. They are quite docile, and you can approach them and get right up close to snap pictures. I was the only person who spotted the second shark, who was even larger than the first (3-4m). I felt something against my thigh (we wear shorty wet suits so they only go to our knees and mid arm) so I looked down and there was a little 7inch grey fish nibbling at my leg! I brushed him away but he wouldn't leave us alone! Almost the entire dive he was right there, swimming along with us, if he wasn't against me he was right up against our instructor, around his legs, next to his tank. He was pretty cute, it made it enjoyable that's for sure. At the end of the dive as we were ascending we saw a school of small barracudas, but these ones were tiny compared to the massive one we saw at Sharkpoint.

So that completes our diving certifications. Today was incredible, and we can both say we are HOOKED on diving. It's a complete other world under the surface, and it's so relaxing to be floating near weightless along with all the fish. We have 9 days left in Phuket before heading to Singapore, but we definitely plan to come back here after New Years and do some more dive day trips to the various other sites. It's a rewarding challenge, an adrenalin rush, and so calming all at the same time.

I wish I had some more pictures to post, but we don't have an underwater camera (yet). We hope to pick up a housing in Singapore and take a bunch when we return. A couple we met on the boat today just came from Singapore and bought a camera and housing there, she took some pics of us when she saw us underwater and she will email them to us as soon as she can. I will post those here immediately, because I think she got some great shots. There is a fantastic "liveaboard" in the Similans which we hope to sign up for. You live on a ship out there and basically sleep eat and dive each day, for as long as you want. The Similans are part of the Similan Marine Park (like a national park but underwater) and is definitely rated as a world class site.

That's all for now, take care!

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22nd December 2006

Season's Greetings
This is just to let you know that we are thinking of you basking away on a sunny beach while we are enjoying a white Christmas. The temperature here in Winnipeg is supposed to plummet to a high of minus 12 on Christmas day! (Actually, that's practically balmy for this part of the world.) Anyway, have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year you two.

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