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?

Early start today, up at 6am to get on the 7am boat going to ‘Chumphon Pinnacle’ for our first dive.
On our way, we stopped at ‘Zest’ to pick up our usual order of a fried egg sandwich then zoomed down to Crystal to gather our kit and headed to the boat.  Morning dives are great, apart from being a lot cooler, generally the dive sites are pretty quiet.

Once in the water we descended to around 22m, anything deeper than that, the visibility deteriorated.  After a couple of minutes, I spotted a moray eel and then saw my first Thai Lion fish   YAY!    It’s really odd to think that in Egypt they are everywhere and there is only one solitary one here  ..that I’ve seen or heard about.
Chumphon Pinnacle is where we saw our first whale shark even though it was only a few seconds.  I think they must know we’re back as sightings have been rare. Just after we left last year, it was whale shark heaven here.  Typical!!

Second dive was at Twins ..we had inside info on where the Sea horses were but unfortunately we didnt find them.  Next time perhaps.   Apart from that, the visibility was excellent and we a lovely chilled dive, spotting a blue spotted ray, scribble file fish and at the end of the dive I found someones mask   ..what a result!

Back on land we stopped at the shops and got some lunch and went back to the apartment to eat and then had a welcome snooze.

In the evening we went to a Save Koh Tao meeting where they discussed the success all sorts, past, ongoing, suggestions were made for future projects and whats happening, whats needed for the sucess of this years Koh Tao festival.

After everything was done and dusted, a few of us headed to the ‘Flavour’ bar for food and then made our way home.

Jen
x