Simon has academics this morning so I booked myself the morning dive boat.  We got down to Crystal around 6.45am and I got my dive kit whilst Simon got my underwater housing & camera ready.

I dove with Katti today, she too had her camera and had a couple of really nice relaxed divesl.  One at ‘White Rock’ and the second dive at ‘Japaneze Gardens’   The visibility was much better today which I was really please at.   We both managed to get some really good footage of a porcupine puffer, moray eel and a huge starry puffa.  Unfortunately we didn’t find the Eagle ray which has been hanging around in Japanese Gardens but felt satisfied with what we saw.

On dry land I bumped into Si, his class had just broken for lunch which was perfect timing, so I ordered a delivery from ‘Zest’ for two fried egg sandwiches with lots of HP sauce on wholewheat baguette and we caught up on our mornings activities.

After lunch, Si was doing confined water with his group, so I dried off my housing and walked up to ‘Deep Down’ to drop it off and bumped into Katti.  We then decided to treat ourselves to a Thai massage which I really needed as my back has been niggly  ..an hour later, feeling relaxed and knot free I walked back to Crystal and read for a while and had the odd visit from a dripping wet Simon when they broke for their loo breaks.

There were a couple of Open Water video’s and a film by one of ‘Deep Downs’ videographer students who’s just completed the course which we had to stay for as there was going to be a presentation and they wanted Simon in the photo.   Si’s in so much demand.

On the way home we came across an accident, a woman laying in the middle of the road unconscious with blood everywhere.  Didnt really know whether to go and help as the majority of people who had stopped were Thai and seemed to have everything in hand. Hopefully she will make a full recovery….

Takeaway food, and an early night!

It’s the last day of Reef Check today and Si is starting team teaching an Open Water Course so couldn’t come out on the boat.  He was pretty gutted, as it turned out to be ‘Speedy’, Crystal’s speedboat.
Apart from yesterday morning, we’d never been on it and now it’s two days on the trot for me.
I waved goodbye to Simon and we headed out to the ‘Lighthouse’ reef which is on the other side of the island.

Today the students are doing their final survey on a shallow (5m) transect 100 meter line where the findings will be logged onto a global database and I headed out with Katti (another Instructor) to survey the deep transect line (10m).  I took the Invertebrates survey as I find that a lot easier than identifying fish 😉

The visibility was pretty good, an array of coloured coral, abundance of fish.  I was amazed at the lack of sea urchins and sea cucumbers compared to Mae Haad reef.

After Katti and I  had finished the deep survey, we headed off for a fun dive as we still have lots of air left so we headed off trying to find some caves but unfortunately didnt find them and got attacked by a couple of large Trigger fish which was fun  ..NOT!

Back at Crystal we collected the data and transfered it onto forms which Nathan will later log for global use.

In the evening, I caught up with a few people in the bar whilst waiting for Simon to finish his academics with his student before heading home.

Jen

Early start this morning, and we squeezed on to the speedboat with some Divemaster trainees.

We were out purely for a fun dive and our mission today was to find a fish we had never seen, The Pink Tailed Triggerfish. We had some information about where 1 or 2 were living on a particular dive site called “Red Rock”.

So we began our dive, and went North from Red Rock for about 40 mins and were just about to turn around when we saw them… Awesome fish, very timid (unlike there big cousins!).

Mission completed, we headed back to the boat and ran in to 3 Titan Triggerfish (the big cousins)…   One of them was massive (comparable to a pickup truck engine!) and was very aggressive.. After swimming out of his area, he swam around a rock and hid hoping we would come past… so he could attack again! Cheeky damm fish!

In the afternoon,  we were out on the longboat this afternoon helping with reef check.  It’s easy diving just pointing out Substrates, Invertebrates, Fish and any other oddities to the students

Back on land we gathered to discuss their findings and Nathan went through some of his books pointing out numerous corals and discussing what students noticed with regards to coral bleaching, disease & various causes   ..doing the Reef Check course really does make you look at the dive sites in a different light.

Both pretty tired and sweaty we headed home.  Popping into ‘Kanya’ our favourite Thai restaurant on the island so far to get a take away.