Last nights Muay Thai was really good.   The first couple of fights were youngsters which I dont really like to see but they fought well and received lots of applause.
Eddie’s fight went to 3 rounds, both men fought really well but on the 3rd round, Eddies opponent had enough and ended the match by which time the Crystal gang went crazy,  Eddie had so much support that I really felt sorry for the other guy. Video coming soon…

Today we signed up for the afternoon boat just for a fun dive.  Both dives were ok, nothing special, visibility still isn’t great but it was nice to see that some of the corals are slowly recovering, well at least it looks like they are, as it has been cooler, more cloud coverage and the odd shower here and there.

In the evening, we met up with a few friends for a BBQ.  It was delicious.  Garlic bread, sweetcorn, egg salad, sensational spiced vegatables cooked in tin foil on the barbee   ..washed down with a nice red South African wine 😉  

A quiet morning had really, Si & I headed down to Sairee to the clinic as I needed to get my abcess checked out.  Once in there, they took my blood pressure, I talked to the Dr for 2 minutes, then he prescribed more anitbiotics and sent me away.   Felt like a waste of time really for a lot of expense.

As we were not fun diving on the boat this afternoon, we decided to go out to ‘Junk Yard’.  Nathan and a chap called Jessie who did his Advanced with us came along. 

The journey out to Junk Yard was pretty rough, the wind had picked up and when we’d reached the mooring line, Nathan decided that it was too risky to leave the boat moored up as it could quite easily fill with water and sink as the bilge pump wasn’t working.   So Si, Jessie and I jumped in and went for a lovely long dive whilst Nath motored back into shore.

Tonight, our friend Eddie (Dive Master) is fighting at the Muay Thai (kick boxing).  He fought last year, and won  and then found out he broke a bone in his foot, I just hope that doesnt happen tonight. He’ll have lots of support as most of the Crystal crew will be there to cheer him on.

Both Simon and I woke up at the same time, checked the time.   7am!!!    and shot out of bed.  we’re supposed to be on the morning boat   ARGGHH!!!!!!   After dashing about, dressing and packing our bags, we jumped on the bike and sped to Crystal.  Thankfully we’d not missed the boat.  Nathan had got all the students dive bags ready and they were just heading down the beach to the pier.   I hate rushing and especially in the morning.  We both felt really grotty, not being able to shower or have our usual cuppa. So on the boat, we set up and made our way upstairs for role call and then made ourselves a nice cup of tea to wake up accompanied by a large bottle of water.

Our first dive was at Champon, we were taking the student to 30 meters.  Si did a breifing and Nath went through some of the marine life that we might encounter.  The journey wasnt too bad a bit choppy but as we  were on Crystal’s biggest boat, it didnt rock so much, I wasnt sure whether the students looked sleepy or sick to be honest.

In the water, Nathan decided to lead the dive as the visibility was 1-2 meters, terrible and he had a torch which came in very handy at times.
At 28.5 meters we knelt in the sand and the student were shown a colour card, showing how red loses it’s color and looks almost black.  After a few minutes on the bottom we ascended to 20m and circled the pinnacle and then slowly came up to 10m & then made a 5m 3minute safety stop. It wasn’t a bad dive but I just felt for the students as the vis was awful.

On the boat we changed to a fresh tank and then went upstairs for a debrief and the students filled in their log books.  The boat now was heading back to ‘White Rock’ for the students last dive of their Advanced course.  This was going to be the ‘Naturalist’ dive where they had to spot and note 5 different vertebrate and invertebrate.  One of the girls had hired a camera which the whole group shared amoung themselves throughout the dive which they found great fun.   It’s lovely to have underwater memories.

As the dive was coming to an end, I was at the rear of the group and suddenly heard Si shake his rattle,  looked and there were two Trigger fish  …funnily enough two of the girls just carried until they spotted them and then quickly retreated.  Fortunately, the Triggers seemed pretty chilled and left us alone.  I by this time was in the middle of the group and one of the girls signalled, what fish is that?  I turned around and it was another massive Trigger just a couple of meters away  ..Im so glad it just kept on swimming past.

Log books filled in and stamped, we packed our kit away and headed back to land.  The group were now ‘Advanced Divers’

After completing paperwork and saying goodbye to the students, we grabbed some lunch and headed home for a much needed snooze and then woke to watch the MotoGP

Tonight we’re going to get a takeaway and then probably watch a movie..