Snorkeling trip today!!!   We hired the Crystal fishing boat to go out diving/snorkeling around the island.  This time our route took us to ‘Tanote Bay’ which was Chloes choice as she’d not snorkeled around it the other day.  While we all went off snorkeling, Simon set up all our dive equipment and then when got back was practicing his free diving.  He managed to get down to over 11mtrs ..I was impressed.  Free diving is something I don’t really find appealing to be honest as I’m not that good at holding my breath.  On our way to our 2nd location, Aow Leuk, we had lunch. I’d bought some tuna & egg rolls and Fi had bought some tasty water melon and banana’s.

Iona and I went for a little dive.  She used my alternate air source. She did brilliantly.  We went down to around meter and we saw multiple fish, starfish and sea cucumbers .  The only time we came up was when Iona signaled to say she had a sore mouth from my mouthpiece as it was too large.  Once back at the boat, both Chloe and Iona went for a little surface bubble with me in the middle using my snorkel and we ventured all the way into shore and back again.

While this was all happening, Simon and Chris went for a dive and Fiona followed myself and the girls around.

Our last stop was Three Rocks. Simon, Chirs and I all went for a dive while the girls and snorkeled and jumped in from the boat.  We planned it so we’d be out of the water by sunset  ..but due to heavy cloud cover, there wasnt much of a sunset.

Going out on the boat for the day was just lovely.  It’s really relaxing and picking when & where you want to go is just bliss.

Back at Crystal, salty and damp, we sat and had a few beers and then headed to ‘Pranee’s’ for food.  Being out on the boat for most of the day is pretty exhausting, I don’t know how the girls kept awake.

A slow start to the day for me.  I got up around 9.30am,  made a cup of tea for Simon and I and then sat and watched 3 episodes of EastEnders (sad I know)  Simon, as usual  had been up for a few hours working away on various projects.

Today, we were all going to just chill and relax.  I ventured over to Haad Tien around 1pm and joined the girls in the pool, playing various games and seeing how many widths we could swim underwater.  The pool was pretty full compared to last week, a lot more families and children.  A little annoying seeing that we didn’t have the whole pool to ourselves 😀

Later in the afternoon Chris hired a canoe which he, Chloe and Iona took out while Fiona and I snorkeled behind.  We did managed to see a few black tip shark which was brilliant but I really wanted to find Terry the Turtle. 

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