It's Dive O'clock !!!

With heavy sea legs, Mike and I have just returned to land after an incredible 8 day/ 7 night liveaboard sail and dive trip. With Thailand weather, sails up, an old friend, and a mecca of diving in store for us, we knew that this last minute adventure would be one of the best highlights of our year away.

Our diving adventure began on Jan 2 with a tuk-tuk ride from Patong Beach to Chalong Bay Pier, where we saw Alex again (one of the instructor from Ko Tao and co-owner of the sail boat), gave him an enthusiastic hug and met the rest of our liveaboard gang... 3 couples from Swedan. You might not be impressed, but we found this somewhat surprising as we'd only met one other Swedish person on our entire trip and oddly enough the couples didn't know each other either. Suddenly, Mike and I were the minority as English speakers - the first time in a while; especially when we found out our dive instructor was also, you guessed it... Swedish!

A two hour mini-van ride took up us to the pier, where we laid eyes on our home for the next 8 days; The Sampai Jumpa. The wooden hull with 3 sails had a charming quality about her and we were happy to get aboard. Alex and his team: Fred (the underwater tour guide), Ee (the Captain), Lin (the chef) and Khai (the engineer) welcomed us aboard, introduced us to the 21 m, 5 cabin boat, and over a round of Tiger beer, described the hectic schedule we would succumb to for the next 7 days.


View of our ship, the Sampai Jumpa, from the ocean

An example of our Day:

* 6:30am - Wakie Wakie
* 7:00am - Dive #1
* 8:00am - Hot Breakfast
* 10:30am - Dive #2
* 12:00pm - Lunch
* 2:30pm - Dive #3
* 3:30pm - Snack
* 5:00pm - Dive #4 (this could be a sunset or night dive)
* 7:00pm - Dinner & Beer o'clock

Phew! So, to sum it up, it was pretty much: dive, eat, relax, dive, eat, relax, dive, eat, dive, eat, and relax. The dives were stellar (but more on that later), the food was exquisite - with the culinary tastes of traditional Thai and western dishes (I got off the boat almost 2 kilo's heavier), and the relaxing, well... sun and boat... need I say more? I was in heaven!


Ready to jump in - honestly is that what I look like in the mask? Where are my upper teeth?!


Mike is ready for our first night dive!


Before every dive, Alex (in this case) or Fred gave a briefing of the site and all the marine life that we could potentially see.


Relax time!


Relaxing as well - that's another one of the Similan Islands behind him (I think #2?)

As for the diving, well let me first draw you a picture of the Similan and Surin Islands. Located 100 km northwest of Phuket, in the Andaman Sea, the Similans is made up of 9 different islands. The sea floor is littered with enormous bolders and stunning coral reefs, creating a haven for marine life. One hundred km further north is the group of 5 islands that comprises the Surin. The islands have sandy beaches and lush with tropical vegetation. Because of the monsoon season, diving in this area is limited from Oct to April each year. The Similan's boast having one of the top 10 dive site's in the world: Richelieu Rock. The islands are also home to some of the sea's most fantastic creatures; including manta ray's and whale sharks. We were eager to jump in and explore this diving wonder.


View of Similan Island #8 from our boat.

With our own computer watches to monitor our stats while underwater (necessary for multiple day dives), on Jan 3 at 7:55am, our group decended for the first time into the Andaman Sea. The location was Anita's Bay; a nice leisurely dive to get everyone reaquainted with their equipment and bouyancy skills. Minutes after depleting our BCD's of air and plunging 27.7 m into the 24 Deg C water, we glanced up into the ocean blue and to our shock and amazement, witnessed a large manta ray passing by. Mike was going to point out a Trumpet fish to me, but when he turned around, the ray was right behind me. The 3 m ray maneaveured gracefully in the water and circled us once, enabling me to see it's soft white under belly before continuing it's search for food. Fred, our dive guide was stunned b/c in the 15 years he's dived the Siliman's he has never spotted or heard of anyone spotting a manta ray at this site before. So, dive one: check mark for the largest ray in the world!


Our manta ray. Friggin' awesome!

The dives continued at a lightning pace and we were introduced to many new species of marine life such as Octapus, Kuhl Stingrays in the sand, White Margin Unicorn Fish, Redtooth Trigger Fish; Longnosed Emperor Fish, Blue Starfish on the sea floor, etc. We started to practice Negative Entry dives (where you deplete your BCD and fix your face mask on board then jump into the water, with no surface stop and immediatley start to decend) necessary for strong currents and high waves. Unfortunatley I had to skip out on a couple of dives because I had a reverse block - where air gets trapped in your ear while submerged and then when you surface the pressure is greater, creating a very painful ear ache. Luckily after a dose of cold medicine to unblock my sinus cavities and ear drops, I was back in the water again without missing too much marine life; although my left ear is still plugged.





On our second day of diving, Fred had led us through a swim through created by rocks and Mike and I were the last ones to go through, content to stare at the box fish and my favourite: the Oriental Sweetlips. After we idlyically sauntered out of the swim thru, we noticed that everyone else was in a frenzy and racing towards something. By the time we reached the group 20m ahead of us, the fish that had gotten their attention had disapeared into the murky water. When we reached the surface, we found out that everyone except Mike and I had spotted sharks! White tipped reef sharks to be exact. Our instructor saw 6 while the majority of people saw 2 or 3. Mike and I were so dissapointed! Continuing to stress our dissapointment throughout dinner, Alex stated that the objective for the next day's dive was for Kendra (that's me) to TOUCH a shark. I laughed and said before I could touch one, I actually had to see one!

So, the next day (Jan 5) on our third dive, at Three Tree's site, after 10 minutes of diving around a sandy pinnicle, Fred pointed out a LEAPORD SHARK sleeping in the sand. It was the first time that Mike and I had seen a shark and we were ecstatic (plus it's much easiler on the nerves to see a shark when it's sleeping below you in the distance rather than prowling around you in the ocean). Slowly Fred drifted closer to the sleeping hunter and beckoned me to follow. I did and slowing we pivoted our way right beside the beast and then Fred indicated for me to touch the shark and without any hesitation, I DID!!! Its back was hard and sandpaper like. My touch wasn't gently enough though, because the shark woke up and slowly swam around the group, looking at us inquisitely before moving a few metres away. This was one of the best moments of the trip for me.


Oh, I wish this was a picture of me touching the shark, but we didn't have the camera with us on that dive. This is me descending after jumping from the boat (above in the picture). That's Mike's knee.

Another favourite diving moment was at a site called Koh Bon. Mike accuratley described the dive as "Manta Ray Theatre". Our diving group held onto a rocky ridge covered in coral and floated in the current waiting for Manta's to drift by and we were rewarded with multiple sightings! There was at least 3 different rays that curiously circled over us at least 10 times throughout the 50 min dive. The rays measured in 3 - 4 metres, not including their tail. Such an amazing thing to see these majestic creatures floating in the water around you. It was a very special moment to share our dive with them. An encore performance an hour and a half later resulted in another 4 sightings, plus a quick glimpse of a leopard shark swimming in the blue 15 meter away while we completed our safetly stop.

The marine life bonanza continued with giant eels, octupus, sea snakes, poisonous yet beautiful lion fish , camoflagued scorpian fish (yet again poisonous), Durban Dancing Shrimp, and even 2 very rare yellow Tigertailed SEA HORSES!. We also did a couple of wreck dives, which was really neat to see. All in all, the diving was everything that we had hoped for and more. The only thing missing was the elusive Whale Shark, which I personally think are a myth anyways :-)


Giant Moray Eel


Clown Fish

When we weren't in the sea, we became friends with the Swed's: Eva & Dag; Mathias & Per; and Karin & Mathias. Another diver joined us on our second day- Marg from Bathe, England, who was also lovely. Surprisingly, everyone was around the same age and we all got along really well (unless they were talking about us badly in Swedish and just pretending to be nice to us in English the whole week). Now we'll have to visit the Scandanavian country as we have so many places to stay! Unfortunately our friend Alex, had to leave the boat mid way through the trip. It was great to see him for a third time and I'm sure we'll see him again in a few years when we sign up for his new luxury dive boat trip!

Well that's 20 more dives for the ol' dive log book!

Sunkissed and feel like fishies!
Kendra & Mike