Today we were on the long tail boat helping Nathan out with Reef Check Course. Hopefully all of the Crystal staff will be steered to take this course. Today we had 2 instructors & one dive master.
After our survey we washed, stored out kit and headed to one of the classrooms to enter the data that we had just taken. If you remember from last year, Reef Check is where we’d put down a 100meter line and survey a total of 2.5m either side (invertibrates, fish and substrates) and then log the data and send it to Reef Check.
It was really good to hear that each of students found it very rewarding and totally refreshing from instructing all the time. Its funny how we are blinkered to coral damage, disease especially when you’re not looking for it.
Dirty Nelly’s was tonights venue as a friends Open water video was being shown. Not that I watched any of it as Nathan’s wife Tracy turned up with her friend Nelly and we got chatting and ended up laughing uncontrollably about the silliest of things …boy, it’s good to laugh.
I think we retired around 11pm for a good nights sleep.
This morning woke to find a few Burmese guys climbing the coconut trees in front of our house like monkeys, chopping down the coconuts nuts & palms down. Safety is totally out the window. For each tree they did, they’d get around 300baht ..and that apparently is a good rate. Rather them than me ;-D
In the meantime, Si had spotted a odd looking leaf insect on the inside of the window of our living room ..check it out!
We left the boys with their coconuts and went to the boat for a couple of fun dives… Just us 2…. The first dive was “Twins”, visibility was beautiful and we spent most of the time looking for small stuff.
Next dive was “The Pottery”. Being a shallow, small dive site it can get a bit tiresome. But today we dive it differently. We jumped off the boat and headed directly south of the dive site. After 10 mins of seeing not very much, we came across “Three Rocks” a little dived site. With a very nice swim through and lots of life such as Puffers, Triggers etc. It added a new element to “The Pottery” Very nice.
We arrived back, washed our gear as per usual. Couple of drinks at the Crystal Bar while Simon did work stuff, and then back home for Eastenders and another takeaway from Kanya, which is fast becoming my favourite Thai food place on the island.
Today we went to ‘Choppers’ to catch the World Superbikes 1st Race but when we got there it wasn’t on, so refused to order anything for about 20 minutes, then got fed up and left to go to ‘Cafe Corner’ for breakfast. There, they were showing the devastation in Chile ..thankfully our friends Tim & Magda who live Coyhaique, south Chili were not affected (we think). As for the Tsumami warnings in Hawai, Oz and New Zealand ..frightening stuff. We’re not affect thankfully, being in the gulf has it’s advantages. Anyway, walking back to bike we walked passed ‘Choppers’ again and low and behold, the Superbikes were on …typical ..Si was not happy at all.
Our afternoon dives were at ‘Mango Bay’ and ‘Twins’ ..The visibility at Mango was terrrible, we could just about see the guys in front of us ..God knows we were going ..anyway, 30mins in or so, we headed into shallower water where funnily enough it was crystal clear ..whats that all about?! …our second dive was at ‘Twins’ diving conditions were perfect! We showed the group we were with around Buoyancy World.
Since we last dove, structures had been moved and there were a couple of guys down there putting together the massive octopus ..it’s really going to look good once it’s finished. I did a count of the bamboo structures and theres still 30 to move ..so we’ll have to round up a few people for that job.
Back on dry land, we washed our kit and headed for a quick drink at the bar before getting a takeaway. Back home Alan & Heidi were having a BBQ ..with music blasting and friends gathered around the BBQ.
We munched our takeaway which was tasty and very cheap (110Baht) whilst things were slowly cooking on the BBQ …there was enough in our takeaway for 2 days, portions so big ..knowing that I had more in the fridge I went for seconds ..what a gannet I am LOL There was quite a mixture of people, Thai, French, American and German …only spoke to a few of them but they all seemed really nice. Later, Alan pulled out the biggest tub of ice cream Id ever seen and we all tucked in. By this time I was more that full ARGH!!!! As the evening passed, most of the gang went down to the games room to play pool. Si, Tom (our neigbour) & Fred retired to our lounge for a quiet drink and chat.
