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..

Today we started the Advanced Open Water with 4 of our Open Water Students and a Canadian chap that joined our us.  So after meeting at Crystal we through their Knowledge reviews and briefed them on the afternoon dives which were

‘Peak Performance Buoyancy’ where we try and instill how they can use their breathing effectively, their use of effective approach and to practice this, get them to dive through swim throughs, pick up or draw circles around a weight in the sand and then write their names whilst being upside down.

‘Navigation’ dive, we practice this on land first on how to navigate a square in thier buddy teams.  They found this pretty confusing at first, turning the compass bezel one way and then turning their body another.  Counting kick cycles and getting them to use natural elements then after a short fun dive, we asked them where the boat was.  Most of them got it spot on, I suppose it must have been our brilliant instruction ;-D

Todays dive sites were Twins and Japanese Gardens.  The visibility wasn’t great but much better than their Open Water dives.  The students seemed to be enjoying themselves, at least they saw Buoyancy World at Twins and some beautiful coral at Japanese Gardens

Back at the pier, we moved our dive kits to Crystal’s smaller boat as we were the only group doing a night dive.  Si and I were conducting this as Nathan had to stay on the boat as surface cover but had his wife Tracey to keep him company.  So with just an hour to grab a drink and food, we walked along the beach back to Crystal and Nath, Si and I waited in the restaurant. The students turned up early so Si did a dive briefing and we headed to the boat.  We chose to go to ‘Twins’ the journey out was pretty choppy and all the students were feeling sick and setting up wasn’t the easiest of things to do. 

Torches on and kitted up, one by one we jumped in the water and made our way to the buoy line and decended.   As the shallow pinnacle at Twins is only 10/12 meters we made our descent, swam out into a sand area and then knelt on the sand.  Si then sent the students in thier buddy teams to do navigation on a rescipricle heading, the only skill which they had to perform, which they did beautifully and then we went for a 40 minute fun dive spotting numerous sting rays, puffa’s,  feather coral, trevally hunting which the students loved.  I must say that the students did very well, they managed their buoyancy really well for a night dive.

The return journey wasn’t that pleasant, we had a great dive but the students we feeling pretty sea sick.  One girl threw up but most of it came back in her face  and the rest of them just sat, looking very pale while Si, Nath and I disassembled their kit and packed it away in their bags  ..what a spoilt lot!!

It didnt take too long to get back to the pier, maybe 20 mins or so and then Tracey appeared,  she was feeling rough and was lying down on the upper deck unable to move,I dont think she’ll be coming out to keep Nathan company in the near future when it’s this choppy.