Phi Phi Island - Day 3

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Today I had 3 courses, deep dive, navigation and night dive. I did the first two in the morning and the last one took place at night as its title indicates. :-)

The first one was the deep dive.

It wasn't that deep, only 27 metres but we did an exercise on the boat and then again at 27 metres and it took me twice the time to complete the very same exercise. Amazing... you feel normal like nothing has changed...but it has... also the colours change, infrareds are the first to go so instead of red you see some kind of brownish shade.

After that we went for some fun dive armed with my new budy, Mr digital underwater camera. :-)

I took some really cool pictures

Another sea slug

What an ugly fella!

When we got to this point, Daniel, my instructor, was asking me to take pictures of something, I got closer and took the next two pictures thinking they were awsome

But no, what he wanted me to capture was this

Anemone crabs!

I still prefer the clown fish though. :-)
And this was a very impresive coral forest, as wide and long as your eyes could reach...

On the second dive it was even better! We even saw a leopard shark! and a turtle too. :-)

And this is it! the leopard shark!

Then we went back to Phi Phi to take a break, have diner etc to reconvene at 6pm for the night dive. Daniel, the instructor, told me yesterday all the instructors of the island went together to the wreck and he was trying an ultraviolet torch (like the one the use in CSI when searching for blood and some other...fluids) and everyone wanted to buy one after the dive. So now it was my turn to find out what was all the fuzz about this Ultraviolet light on a night dive...

I'm not sure whether the problem was my mask or that in reality there was very little visibility, but I could not see a thing! not even 10cm in front of me. I was getting water in my mask all the time so I spent  most of the dive just purging this water. There was a strong storm outside and we could feel the lightening, that was awsome!. Because of the torch and the compass I couldn't carry anything else, hence no photos...which is a shame because through my more than watery mask I've managed to see a barracuda hunting and a squid. :-)

As far as the ultraviolet light...I'd wish I could see anything through my mask beyond 10 cm I'm sure it was quite a view, perhaps another time...

I didn't enjoy the night dive as much as any of the other 4 dives I did in Phi Phi and as a night dive goes, I enjoyed much more the ones I did in Australia but overall diving in Phi Phi was a lot of fun and I quite enjoyed it. No regrets in doing the 2 day course. :-) Best part of all is that now I am qualified to go down to 30 metres which will allow me to go to some of the best wreck dives in the world. There is a pretty good one in Cyprus where I'll be going in August... :-)

Ah, also, as today I was the only person going for a night dive, instead of going in the diving boat we used during the day, we went in one of those typical thai dingies...this is what they look like...

it was quite an experience as well, and as I was coming out of it on the way back I injured my left foot. Nothing serious, just a cut. I just hope it won't prevent me from doing the rock climbing tomorrow.

And those were my first 3 days in Phi Phi island. Tomorrow I'll attempt rock climbing in the afternoon. It'll be my first time rock climbing so I'm really looking forward to it. :-)



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Phi Phi Island - Day 2

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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. :-)

Other bits and bobs

After the diving I went to one of the local beaches and stayed there until sunset

And this was my hard day at the office today. :-)

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