We had a lovely walk over to Liam Thien the other day.   The walk starts in Sairee, so I cycled, collecting lunch on the way and Simon rode Roy over on his bike and then the walk commenced. It’s not really a massive walk, around about 5k but in the afternoon heat and the first section is mostly uphill we all suffered a little.  The walk brings you to an abandoned resort.   The resort is now in ruin, grafitti, broken windows, litter everywhere but in it’s hay day, it must have been beautiful.

I’ve been doing some ECO diving days with the DMT’s at Crystal which, giant clam transplants and yesterday a beach & dive site clean up which was pretty successful as we gathered 3 massive bags of rubbish.

Simon and Roy have been out on the boat too, taking photo’s, helping tidy up all the dead clam shells that have been eaten by the Trigger fish and even some coral transplanting.

Yesterday, we put ourselves on the boat  to fun dive in the afternoon which was great fun.  We went to Southwest, a deep dive site.  Visibility was pretty good, 15 or so meters which is much better than what it’s been in the last few weeks.

As the visibility has been pretty bad, we’ve not been out diving.  Simon has taught a ‘Self Reliant’ course over the course of a couple of days but I’ve not done a great deal apart from the odd swim, cycle but it’s been good to spend time with Roy.

We’ve not been lazy, we’ve all been out on walks which have been very hot and great fun. Sometimes I’ve cycled part of the way and then met up with the boys as I don’t enjoy walking up hills LOL 

Last night we attended a fundraiser for our friend Chad who was recently been diagnosed with Leukemia .  He is in hospital in Bangkok undergoing chemotherapy & blood transfusions.  Chad is one of the most dedicated and passionate people you’ll ever meet.  He inspires everyone!  For years he’s been working tirelessly to protect the reefs & island.  Training countless of divers in all aspects of marine conservation, so everyone got together to raise funds and find blood donors as he has a rare blood type.Roy was lucky enough to win a couple of prizes.  A 4 fun dive trip with a new French company and a multi functional cooker 😀

We’ve been back nearly a week and its seems like only yesterday we were playing scrabble in front of the log burner and sipping on bubbly with Rosie 😀

The first few days back are always quite hard to adjust especially not seeing the family but I think we’re just about over our jet lag and back in the swing of things.
What’s lovely is that we have Simon’s brother here, Roy.   He arrived the afternoon of the 23rd Feb and we’re slowly easing him into island life.  

As I’ve been away, I arranged some ECO dives with the DMT’s (Dive Master Trainee’s)  A Drupella snail collection dive (coral eating snails) and then onto our artificial reef, Junkyard to do some coral transplants and cleaning. It was a great day as we used new tongs/tweezers to collect the snails and on just one dive we collected a record breaking 1186 snails.

Whilst I’ve been out diving with the DMT’s,  Simon has taken Roy in the pool for a Scuba Review to refresh his diving skills.  He’ll now be able to come out and help with ECO and do lots of fun dives.

While we were in the UK, Mae Haad pier collapsed in a storm, so we’re now having to be ferried to and from the Crystal dive boats in the longtail.  It takes a lot longer but it’s works 😀

Who knows when the new pier will be built.

So apart from diving and propping up the Crystal bar in the evening LOL we ventured out yesterday and did a gentle hike up to John Suwan Viewpoint, one of Koh Tao’s prettiest spots.  We’d prepared, well Simon had as he’d packed lots of water and made individual salads for our little picnic that we’d planned the night before.  Lunch was Delicious!!