We were on the early boat this morning, so up at 6am.

Finally we get to go to the other side of the island to ‘Hin Wong’    Unfortunately the visibility wasn’t too great below 15m or so but there were some beautiful fan, whip and table coral. We bumped into a couple or trigger fish which seemed pretty placid and were fortunate to see a couple of razor fish.  At the end of the dive we just  stayed above the pinnacle probably 5-7 meters, the visibility was perfect.  The abundance of colour and fish was just amazing!

Our second dive was at ‘Green Rock’ which is known for its Trigger fish pitts  ..I think the last time I dove her, one of the dive master trainees refused to lead as she’d been triggered numerous times.  I was pretty apprehensive at first as we ascended and there were at least three trigger fish swimming around.  For some reason, even though it is mating season, they all seemed pretty preoccupied and left us all alone throughout the whole dive.

The dive itself was fabulous.  So much variation compared to the last dive.  Visibility was great. There were a couple of swim throughs, moray eels, huge travelly, angel fish, butterfly fish, huge schools of damsel fish and  I spotted the smallest baby sweetlips ever… they are so cute as they haven’t mastered swimming yet and just seem to be doing “The Twist” dance.

After the dives, we headed home, had some lunch and slept for an hour or so  ..these early morning dves really get to you ;-D

That evening we showered and went back into Mae Haad to ‘Dirty Nelly’s’ to watch a couple of Open Water students videos.  The first video, they’d been lucky enough to catch an Eagle ray on film …so jealous!!
After the films were shown they put the football on (Yawn)  …so we finished our drinks and went to Sairee to  ‘Lotus’, where we had a beer and watched the guys dancing with the fire poi.   Si was pretty tired so we left after one beer and headed home.

Jen
x

Tea on the balcony today, was beautiful.  A nice cool breeze swept through the apartment as we got ready to go out.

Our first port of call was to Crystal, to book ourselves on tomorrows morning dive and to collecting our mask & fins as we were going snorkelling today, to ‘Shark Bay’.

On arrival we popped into the ‘New Heaven’ bar/restaurant for a drink and bite to eat.  This place has a reputation for having slow service but we didnt seem to have a problem.   I had a tastey cheese omlette with large bottle of water and Si had a veggie breakfast and shake which took no time at all.
The view from this place was lovely, you could see the whole bay  ..must be beautiful at sunset!

Down headed down the monstrous steps to the rocks we kitted up and got in the water.  We snorkelled for a couple of hours at least, saw the big puffa fish, around 5 black tip shark (slightly disappointing) and a few trigger fish which were pretty chilled.  On our way back in, we snorkelled across the old Bio Rock (basically a metal structure which has a small current running through it to promote the growth of coral) it’s been there for nearly two years now and it’s pretty amazing to see how much growth there is compared to the surrounding area.

Anyway getting out was pretty tricky, I should have remembered to swim around to where we got in originally as I had done previously with Alan & Heidi but we both decided to take our fins off and climb across the rocks.  I didnt have much success, the rock surface was so slippery, I ended up walking between the rocks and still slipped, cutting my leg in the process.  DOH!

After clambering up the steps and riding back to Crystal to drop our snorkelling gear we headed to the bar for a coke & sprite.  Boy, it’s was hot.   Even though we’d been in the sea for most of the day we then decided to go to the pool to cool off.

Dinner was at Safety Stop where we both had a spicy burger (veggie burger for Si) then after writing mails and doing some work, we popped into ‘Dirty Nelly’s’ to have a quick beer and then went home to watch Battle Star Galactica.

Jen x

SCOOP!

An insider has leaked me some undercover photos of Crystal Horror Picture Show rehearsals..

Grainy as they are, we can see Jenny practising what looks like hiding from the audience in one photo…. nerves maybe?

In the other… not sure… maybe she is now so used to the stage and people are attempting to drag her off?