Yago is travelling: Phi Phi Island

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Yesterday I went to 5-6 scubadiving shops to ask about the trips they do, prices etc and it turns out that all scubadiving places in Phi Phi island have got together and set a fix price so whatever place you go, the price will be the same. In the end I settled for Adventure Club. They like to leave early in the morning in order to avoid the crowds, and that works for me. :-)

Today I decided to start working on the Advance Open Water acreditation. It takes two days so I'll have plenty of time to do it and the price is really good down here. Much cheaper than most other places, so why not, you only live once. :-)

So I booked two courses for today, Peak Performance Buoyancy and Underwater Photography. The former one, in case you're wondering, is a set of exercises and techniques to improve your buoyancy. Diving is all about buoyancy so I thought I could get something good out of that course, and the second one was underwater photograpy. This second one may sound weird but believe me when I tell you that it is hard taking pictures underwater. The most difficult thing you can do underwater is to stay still. :-) which is exactly what you need in order to take a good photo.

So far I had never taken any photos underwater while diving and if there is something I learnt today is how difficult it is. It doesn't look difficult, you take you camera go to your room and snap, snap, two perfect photos, no effort... underwater however it's a different matter, you are moving all the time, stay still is one of the most difficult things you can do underwater. Every time you inhale you go up, when you exhale you go down...so imagine taking a picture while you go up and down...and underwater there is less light than on the surface you must get really, really close to the subject to be photographed in order to have a nice and clear picture. . :-)

This second course was the hardest but the most fun too. It was so fun I'll be taking the camera again tomorrow when I do the next three courses. Deep dive (up to 30 metres or so), navigation and a night dive.

I was quite disapointed with the fact I couldn't go to the wreck due to lack of interest, we were very few interested. It would appear that the problems with the European flights it's affecting the local businesses, they claim the streets are deserted, although if you ask me I would say the place is crowded, I would imagine it depends on what you are used to. ;-)

Apparently when nobody could fly, they had way too many people because they were trapped in the island and wanted to do something while waiting for a new flight, but now all those people are gone and no new people has come still because of the flights and they are feeling the pinch...

I´m still keeping my fingers crossed...you never know, maybe another day...

So we did two dives and you'll have to forgive my photographic skills, this was my first time but I think I've managed to do pretty well.

The first diving site was Koh Bida Nok (Koh means island in Thai) and we managed to see morays, sting rays, a reef octopus and a scorpion fish among other things. :-)

Getting to Koh Bida Nock

And then it was time to get into the water. 32C!!! water feels like a hot soup!

Going down

Sea horse

Can you spot the scorpion fish

How about now?

Reef Octopus

Can you see the sting ray?, not my best shot but they are quite shy and very fast if they feel threatened.

And some other bits and bobs

Me working on one of the exercises

Then we went to a bay on a nearby island where we stopped to have lunch (at 10:30 in the morning!!) my earliest lunch ever!.

We rested for an hour and a half and moved on to the next diving spot.

This was a pretty cool spot. We managed to see a lion fish, turtles a sea slug and some pretty cool coral.

Lion fish

I know it would have been nicer a front picture but the little sucker was turning around every time I tried...so that´s the best I could come up with.

Turtle. I was so close I could almost touch it. Normally they are very timid but not this one...I even made a video of my instructor swimming alongside the turtle. Really friendly fella. :-)

There was a point where my instructor, Daniel was pointing at something for me to take the picture and I saw this and thought it was worth the picture.

As soon as I took the photo he started to make signals to me to indicate that that wasn't it, he wanted me to take a photo of something else...and then I saw it...a sea slug! So I also took a picture of it. :-)