Hey That White Stuff...is sand !

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Dec 19 - 30 (photos to follow...)

Happy Holidays...and Happy New Year.

Spent a peaceful Christmas week on the southern Thai island of Koh Tao with a friend from Edmonton, Bob. Snorkelled with 5 blacktipped sharks in murky water and worried about where they all were...behind, in front, beside me...

Went SCUBA diving 2ce with a very zen company (Heaven Dives) in search of nudibranchs. I have gone from looking for the BIG fish to these very tiny (some as small as 1/4 inch) sea slugs that come in fluorescent colours (think dangerous KoolAide colours like...pumkin orange, peacock blue, fire engine red, etc) in all different shapes and sizes with "fans" on their heads and other decorative furry type features. You have to see them to believe them (try...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Spanish_shawl.JPG.) as words are too limited to describe them. Other highlights included an array of tropical fishies circling around us in schools, a huge school of gigantic barracudas (eerily leering and gaping their shrapnel teeth), a few moray eels, velvetty giant clams, and a cuttle fish.

On Christmas eve as I was eating dinner...I kept seeing things...stars moving through the sky in strange and faster than usual patterns. No, I didn't have too much to drink. We went to explore and found Asias version of environmentally unfriendly mini-zeppelins. Huge white (approx 5ft x 3ft) paper bags with a candle attatched at the open base and lit to make it air bound...using the same concept as hot air balloons. They sailed up up and away...moving along in the breeze to cluster together in newly formed constellations...only to eventually end up falling from the sky and littering the bottom of the ocean. Beautiful to watch though.

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Comments

[Kim]

Dangerous Koolaid?
Susan, would love to see the pictures of dangerous koolaid and unfriendly mini-zeps ....