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Published: March 25th 2007
Hawksbill Turtle
This beautiful turtle swam around our boat during our rest period between dives. She was just like a puppy fetching each piece of watermelon we threw out to her. Last week, the whole family, Bea, Sean, Tracy & myself returned to Similan. Bea snorkeled while the three of us dove. Like the trip I did a couple of weeks prior, we had 3 dives on the first day with a 4th dive at night. Then the next day we dove 2 more times before returning to Phuket.
We began our trip at the Yacht Marina on the northeast corner of Phuket. From there the dive boat enters the Andaman Sea through the channel running beneath the Sarasin Bridge. The ride to Andaman was about 2 hours. Pearl Andaman's boat is well equipped for this trip and provides a fast and comfortable way to reach Similan.
Bea and I spent the night in the small bungalows with a fan while Tracy and Sean stayed in a tent. Tracy and I were wonders the next morning. She had not slept a wink on her board-like bed. And I had managed to get a vicious bathing suit rash that forced me to walk around like I was severely saddle sore. I didn't help things during the night by using any cream I could get my hands on to stop the
Octopus with brown coloring
This good size Octopus had very effective camouflage. Here she is having just moved off a brown rock. burning. In the morning, Gerald, the Divemaster, looked at me, laughed, went over to the small store and bought me some baby powder for 15 baht. I'll never dive without baby powder again.
Sean and I took lots of pictures on these dives. The Octopus was one of the largest I've personally seen diving (they're pretty shy so not often seen). He gave us a great display of his ability to camouflage instantly to the background. We also saw an absolutely beautiful Hawksbill Turtle that Tracy got some great pictures of. Like the last trip, the visibility was not as good as it could have been, but the diving was still great. Our favorite dive was the last part of "East of Eden", a beautiful coral garden with tons of small fish.
A couple of days after this trip, a good friend of Tracy's from Boulder, Travis Tharp, visited. He's on an around the world trip and had just come from Saigon to do some diving with us. He missed the Similan trip so I joined him for a day trip to Koh Phi Phi for a couple of dives. We also did this trip with Pearl Andaman.
Octopus with sandy coloring
The Octopus changed to this modeled sandy color almost instantly when she moved onto a sandy area. Rather than going out into the Andaman Sea the boat goes south to reach Koh Phi Phi. It's a very beautiful boat ride with a lot of scenic islands. The visibility was not sterling but the dives were fun. The highlight was a cave exploration where we saw lots of lobsters out in the open.
As we returned back to Phuket, the weather was chasing us all the way. We could see the skies darkening and big rain clouds forming. Then as we were within 200 meters of the yacht harbor, we ran out of fuel. We floated there for a half hour as the weather caught up with us. The crew was creative in getting the very last drops of fuel to the engine; just enough to get us into the boat's slip. As we got into the truck, the skies opened up and gave us a sample of what torrential rain Phuket can get. Not unlike Kauai!
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Judy and Robert
non-member comment
Awesome!!!
What a wonderful family journey. Thank you for the beautiful underwater shots as well as the great shots of you diving band of exploreres. We send you love.