I cycled into Crystal this morning at 6.45am and left Simon in bed for a change.

The dive sites today were Leam Thian which is on the East side of the island to take a look at some of the deeper coral. This site has lots of whip and fan coral to observe.

Nathan had taken his ‘Coral Finder’ underwater book with magnifying glass, which we used to identify corals.  I did at one point find a little shrimp symbiotically living with a whip coral and borrowed Naths magnifying glass to have a really good look but the clever little thing moved on the opposite side of the whip coral everytime I tried.

There is so much to learn and understand about the underwater world, it’s mind blowing

The 2nd dive was at the wreck at Japanese gardens.  The wreck itself is an old dive boat which sank in a storm and has only been there a year and there’s an enormous amount of life living on and around it.

Back on dry land,  we broke for lunch.  Si collected me on the bike and we then met Nathan, Tracy & Kailash at ‘Choppers’ to have a bite to eat and to watch Nath’s team play Aussie football  …which is a crazy game. Nathan did explain the rules/plays but it still seemed a little odd.

After lunch we met back in the classroom going through theory and watched Al Gore’s ‘The Inconveinient truth’ , an incredibly thought provoking documentary.. I strongly recommend you view.

That evening we went to ‘Shalimar’ Indian restaurant, for our friend Johns Birthday dinner where we ate and drank far too much.  A very nice evening had.

Currently we are both assisting Nathan on a Marine Resource Management course, a 6 day course involving theory and practical eco applications.

After a morning in the class, we went to Junkyard to do a Fish Survey. Nathan handed the reigns of boat driver over to me!!

We had a nice long dive at Junkyard, doing the survey and fixing up some stuff from a storm a few days ago.

After, we returned home and went back out to a Save Koh Tao meeting that evening.
Next day, more eco stuff! This time Coral Watch monitoring. The boat went to Aow Leuk which holds some coral nurseries, giant clam nursery and a newly installed artificial site.

Unfortunately I had some sinus issues and had to abort the dive, but the rest carried on and had a blast..

That evening we all went for dinner at Morava… Very nice..

Today… its building work!

A university sponsored by the Department of Marine & Coastal Resources has donated some coral nursery “packs” for a scientific research project. Basically its a mecano set and we spent the morning constructing them.

After we had built them, Jenny and I went to Junkyard, to drop them in… It was my 1st dive in 2 weeks!!! 22 minute dive (very short, but all that was needed to put the items in) and NO problems!!! What a relief!

As soon as we got back from Junkyard, it was back onto the boat where Jen went down filming the rest of the divers bolting the concrete biscuit tins to the nurserys. Footage will be online soon.

Tonight, we head to Choppers, where they are having a Crystal Staff & DMT buffet… hopefully some veggie food will be on offer!!

Ta

SD