scuba, scuba, scuba

My liveaboard boat to the Similans was amazing, to say the least. The reefs are absolutely teeming with fish, and in some cases, there are walls of glass fish you have to sort of wave away in order to see the crevices in the rock. I did 4 dives per day, saw many lionfish, scorpionfish, triggerfish, clownfish, 2 manta rays, 2 leopard sharks, some ghost pipefish, a seahorse, some banded cleaning shrimp, lots and lots of coral and seafans, moray eels, parrotfish, three turtles, many kinds of anemone, wrasse, surgeonfish, Moorish Idols, Bannerfish, big eyes, etc. The first turtle (and my first turtle sighting!) appeared right after I had gotten back on the boat; I grabbed my mask and jumped back in. He was very friendly and almost bit off Rickard's fingers thinking he had food. Mama Lek, the cook on board, handed us bananas, which we fed the turtle :).

As I mentioned before, I got my PADI Advanced Open Water Certification while onboard. Another girl, Christina, had signed up for the course, so I decided to take it too. The course includes fish identification (Project AWARE), so it was really nice actually being able to know which fish I was seeing. We also watched Finding Nemo onboard to help us with this. I plan on buying a fish ID tablet thing of Southeast Asia so I can show you guys all the stuff I saw (I saw pretty much everything on the list (except a whale shark...next time).

Richelieu Rock, the northernmost dive point, is covered in soft purple and red corals, and was where we saw the two mantas. It is the spot where one is most likely to see mantas and whale sharks. We stayed almost and entire day there and did three dives. There was supposedly a small whale shark in the water--other groups coming up around our boat said they saw it, but I unfortunately did not :(. On the last trip, they saw a small whale shark (they think it's the same one hanging around).

I officially only did 2 night dives (2 were twilight dives), since some of the currents were really strong and we had to adjust our itinerary slightly. They were a little eery, but mostly I saw sleeping fish and shrimp at night.

I know I'm a really huge nerd for saying this, but it totally looks like Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker out here--the game design must have been based on the islands of Thailand.

Everyone on the boat was really nice. We had a full tour of 15 people, and I was by far the least experienced person aboard. There were three other instructors as guests, as well as probably about 5 dive masters. Ann and Barry, a couple from England, had logged over 900 dives in their lives. But, I am now more experienced, and am apparently a natural--my instructor said he couldn't tell that I only had like 10 dives before. I have perfect buoyancy :).

I met a very nice couple, Jeff and Christina, on the boat, who I've been tagging along with the last couple days. Jeff is Canadian; Christina is Taiwanese (born in US but spent most of her life in Taiwan). They are currently teaching English in Japan. After leaving the boat, I went with them to their guest house in Patong. Patong is on the west coast of Koh Phuket (Phuket Island) and is very very touristy. The area we are staying in has a lot of gay bars, massage parlors, and guest houses, so I feel right at home.

We all got a very nice 2.75 hour foot refexology and Thai herbal massage when coming back. Two days on land was killing us, so we all went on a day SCUBA trip yesterday. We did three dives (one wreck dive and two reef dives), which were in the bay, and were a bit disappointing. We definitely spoiled ourselves by doing some of the best diving in the world first. The visibility was much worse, and the wildlife was not as good. The current was pretty strong on the last two dives, and I wound up getting a lot of water in my left ear, which was hurting most of last night--I think 23 dives in 7 days is my limit. I am completly addicted now, though, and can't wait to go back to California and buy some gear and dive the kelp forests around Monterey (not to mention plan my next trip on a Similan liveaboard boat!). I did, however, see two banded sea snakes on the third dive, which were very cool (and some ghost pipefish, which I think are really cool-looking).

It is incredibly hot here; on the boat, there was at least a nice breeze. Phuket is only about 8 degrees from the equator (the constellations at night (on the boat) are flipped around since we're so close to the southern hemisphere--you can see the Southern Cross and everything). Jeff and Christina leave to go back to Japan soon--I am going to stay one more night here and then probably head out for Krabi tomorrow (maybe...I still need to decide) before heading back up to Bangkok to catch my flight to Hanoi.

I've posted some pictures. I realize there are zero pictures of me right now (mostly just rocks and islands and stuff). I will take more. Here's the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/70883827@N00/sets/72057594094837171/

Please let me know if that link doesn't work. bye bye for now.