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Here's another video showing some of the weird and wonderful critters we saw while diving in Phuket. Ferdi says he'll never need to use Final Cut Pro again. Windows Movie Maker ROCKS!! ;-)
If you have trouble seeing the video you can watch it on YouTube by following this link:
Thursday, April 30th
We got on our scooter early and headed to Chalong pier. We got on the boat and two hours later we were at our first dive site: King Cruiser. This 85m catamaran-style passenger ferry sank in May 1997 after hitting the anemone reef while en-route to Koh Phi Phi. We went down to 31.1m, our deepest yet. Visibility was low and there was a strong current but it was awesome and a little spooky to swim along and through parts of this big wreck. We saw lots of fish (a few really big Lion-fish) but was mostly focused on the wreck. Being so deep depleted our air-supply quickly and the dive was only 28mins long.
Our second dive site was Shark Point. The viz was better but not great. That being said, this still turned out to be the most beautiful site we've dived so
far. It's impossible to describe. Suffice it to say that we were absolutely blown away. We saw tons of coral fans, forests of anemones, Banded Coral Shrimp, Box-fish, big Puffer-fish, Red Tailed Butterfly-fish, a Banded Sea-snake and, the highlight, a Leopard Shark snoozing on the sand near the reef. They are docile and totally safe. Even if they wanted to they couldn't really bite you. We approached cautiously, so as not to scare her away. We had a few minutes with her and then some chick arrived and decided that she just had to try and touch it (all good divers know that you look, but you don't touch anything unless you have no other choice). Well, this chick was trying her best to get to that shark. Luckily her buoyancy control was terrible and before she could touch the shark our guide intervened. Then her boyfriend crash-landed on the sand near the shark. The shark had had enough and swam off. We were annoyed, but what can you do? Later on we saw a small Bamboo Shark hiding in the rocks. We also saw six small White-eyed eel all lined up and peaking out from under a rock. They
Lion-fish
deeeep down were sooo cute and reminded us of the sock puppets on "Wielie Walie". All in all a super-awesome dive!
Our third site for the day was Koh Doc Mai, a pinnacle with sheer cliff walls covered with sea-life, going down past 30m. We saw a huge moray eel, huge Puffer-fish, a Reef Octopus, Mantis Shrimp, Box-fish, Pipe-fish, Scorpion- and Lion-fish. We also swam into a big-ish cave. It was a mesmerizing dive.
We returned to the boat totally jazzed. On all the dives we were accompanied by a photographer and once on the boat he showed us his pictures on a laptop. We could then decide if we'd like to buy them. He had some really nice photos and videos and we just had to have it (the video and underwater photos by Neng). The two hours back to port flashed by.
After a butt-numbing scooter ride home we showered, Talita did some washing and then we celebrated with a beer-shandy.
Diving RULES!!!
Today's highlights:
1. Diving Shark Point.
2. Seeing the Leopard Shark.
3. Getting great photos and videos from the dives.
Friday, May 1st
We had a pretty quiet day doing tons
of research about our imminent move to Malaysia. We also said goodbye to Pieter and Leanne as they'll be moving north. We wish them all the joy and good luck with the rest of their six month trip.
We did a bit of reading and then had a nap. After our nap inspiration struck (thanks Lonely Planet!) and we found a budget airline called FireFlyz. They fly from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur for only slightly more than it would cost to go by mini-bus for 8 hours, then a bus and then an overnight train taking a very, very long time. Needless to say, we booked the flight. We leave Monday afternoon. We're very excited for Malaysia!
Today's highlights:
1. Finding and booking a cheap flight to KL.
2. Great chat over a few shandies.
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lize
non-member comment
wow
baie cool video - baie baie cool shark!