It was an early start for Simon, Chris and I as we were all off diving.  Meeting at Crystal at 6.45 was a little bit of a struggle but after a coffee, we were set to go.  Steve, one of the video chaps was free, so he said he’d be delighted to film us and would show it at Crystal tonight at 7.30pm ..how lovely!!.   …video to come!!!!

Our fist dive was at Twin peaks, just a casual dive around the deeper part of the pinnacle where we bumped into a huge school of barracuda.

Our second dive was on the Wreck, the HTMS Sattukut

As for Fiona, Chloe and Iona, they were off to a Thai Cookery class which didn’t start until 10am.  As we came up from our dives, we were wondering what they were doing and how far they’d got with their dishes as after our dives we were going straight up to the cookery class to sample their delights 😀

Dives over and back on land, We washed and packed away our kit and headed to Zest to buy 3 large cappucino’s and 2 mars bar shakes for the girls and headed to the Thai cookery class.  Si didn’t come as he was working doing another eco dive that afternoon.

On arrival, the girls were munching through some No Name vegetable & Papaya salad that they made.  They’d kindly saved some for Chris and I and there was even some No Name vegetable for Simon which we later took back to Crystal for him.

As we made ourselves comfortable, the girls finished off their Pad Thai Prawn and Red Thai Chicken
and presented everything before us, everything smelt and tasted delicious  ..by the time we’d tried a little of everything, we were rather full 😀    

After a short walk back to Crystal we jumped in a taxi and headed back to Haad Tien for a lazy afternoon by the pool and a bit of snorkeling/kayaking to see the black tip shark that swam around the bay. Unfortunately we still didn’t see Terry the Turtle.

Sun kissed and showered, we caught the 6.45pm shuttle bus into Mae Haad and walked slowly down to Crystal bar.  We were all petty excited to see Chris’s movie.  Steve had done a brilliant job and we will be downloading it soon, for all to see.

After a couple of G&T’s we headed down to Whitening to eat and then it was home to bed

Today, Fiona, Chris and the girls chilled out at their resort while Simon, after sneezing most of the night got up early and headed off to the Eco office to continue with work.  After last night’s meal at ‘Yangs’ Si’s tummy wasn’t so good, so I stepped in for Simon and took a few DMT’s (Dive Master in Training) on a Coral Watch survey  (taking note of the lightest/darkest parts, and which type of coral it is, and then submitted it on line) 
After a very hot and sweaty day, we met Chris Fiona and the girls at ‘Hacienda’ (leisure park) around 7pm for dinner.  We ordered some Nacho’s to start with and then I shared a huge Ham and Pepperoni deep pan pizza with Iona.  Everyone else had their own Mexican style meal apart from Si, who had his usual veggie pizza 😀

Even before dinner the girls were very keen to play mini golf.  So how could we refuse 😀
The course was really well built, not easy in the slightest.  A few safari animals awkwardly positioned on the greens.  We only few disastrous holes where we all gave up after 8/9 strokes but apart from that, it was very entertaining.  Iona even managed to get a hole in one!

Last nights BBQ pretty good.  With all bbq’s, the food took a little longer than expected but Simon did a splendid job.  I don’t quite know how he did it, as it was so hot, we were all moaning about the heat.  He is amazing!!!   ..plus earlier on in the day, he’d made a delicious potato salad.

We’d invited a few folk over to join in the festivities, Tim, Steve, Linda and Chinese Mark who isn’t actually Chinese, he just speaks it.

This morning I woke at a reasonable time and ventured upstairs to find Si at the kitchen sink, washing up. We had no water last night, so we were unable to tidy up/wash up.   It always happens at the most inconvenient times.

Anyway, today we hired Crystals newest addition, a little fishing boat which you can hire out and go snorkeling/diving on.  With just 2 crew and the 6 of us, we set off around the island stopping at a few bays as and when we fancied.   The first bay we decided to stop at was ‘Hing Wong’  At first we all went for a bit of a snorkel and then Simon and I took Chris for a dive. 

‘Tanote Bay’ was our second port of call.  No diving this time but we all snorkeled.  Tanote Bay has a huge rock which you can climb and then jump off, roughly 10 or so meters high.  We saw a few hesitant jumpers and Chloe even managed to see a naked one.

Our Final stop was ‘Pottery’ a lovely and unappreciated dive site.  It’s very shallow and an ideal location to take Fiona and Chris for a lovely dusk dive.  We saw an incredible amount of life.  Moray Eels, Puffa Fish, Trigger Fish, Blue Spotted Sting rays to name but a few

I knew that the girls, especially Chloe were eager to drive the boat, so when Suk (the captain) handed the ship over, with very little instruction  ..we were all very nervous and ever so impressed 😀

Then it was time to head back… grab a Singha beer… and retire all very very tired…!