Today we have a ‘Dive site clean up’!    I love doing these  …basically its a dive but we collect rubbish that’s made it’s way into the ocean.

Today we’re diving off Freedom Beach  ..Crystal Dive has 22 volunteers out on their boat amongst a number of other dive schools. On the boat we’re split into small groups of 3/4 divers, given bags to collect rubbish with a pair of scissors if needed to cut any netting tangled up and and then sent off into different directions to hunt for rubbish.

You’ll be amazed at what you find.  Batteries, hair & toothbrushes, clothes, fan belts, big ole biscuit tins, rope and loads of netting.  As bags are filled, either one or all of the divers within that group would ascend and call over the longtail boat to collect the bag and empty it for us and then we’d drop back down to collect more.
My biggest find was around 20 or so fanbelts ..I just dont understand why people throw rubbish into the sea.  I suppose they think what the eye doesn’t see, doesn’t hurt….

Crystal boat was responsible for carrying all the rubbish back to the pier so that we could sort through it in order to get an idea who or what was the biggest offender and possibly take steps into prevention.

Later on we went to ‘Dirty Nellys’ for a drink, watch the new Open Water students video and then headed back down to Crystal bar where a ‘Snorkel Test’ was taking place for the 5 newly qualified Dive Masters.
If  you don’t remember what this entails, then check out post of  Friday, 3 April 2009

As the mayhem settled and people dispersed, we bumped into Tom (fellow instructor) and his friend Frederica, who’s visiting from France.  We chatted for a couple of beers and then headed off home stopping on the way to grab a takeaway as we were starving.

As usual Simon was already working by the time I got up.  Connection hasn’t been great but he’s struggling on through.  I made tea and pottered about for a bit.  Heidi popped down to see if we wanted to go snorkelling at ‘Shark Bay’, as Si was busy I went on my own.   Alan was already down in town having a massage, so Heide drove their jeep down to Crystal so I could pick up my fins and mask, threw them in the boot and then waited in the shade for Alan to turn up.  He parked up his bike and jumped in the jeep and we headed off.

After parking and walking down some monstrous steps, we got our gear on and jumped in.  It wasn’t long before we saw some black tip reef sharks, a trigger fish happily munching away (thankfully) and the biggest puffa fish I’ve seen in a long time. Conditions for snorkelling were perfect.  Black tips were everywhere, I think in one count there were about a dozen or so, nothing compared the 40 which Alan and Heidi saw last week.

I’ve only been to Shark Bay a couple of times, the first time I only saw a couple but only briefly and the second time, none at all, so seeing so many around me I felt a little nervous and apprehensive that they were going to attack  …but they were just chilling taking no notice of us at all.  There were couple of times when Heidi and I turned around and one would swim between us  …Awesome!!
The funniest thing I saw down there was a chaps privates as he attempted to mermaid swm underwater and his trunks ended up around his knees.  I pretended I didn’t see and ended up nearly choking with laughter
Two or so hours later, after getting a burnt butt, we swam back and dried ourselves and climbed the humungous steps and clambered in the jeep.

Back home, Si was still working!!

After a 11hr day, Si had finished and we showered and headed out to ‘Vibe’ for a beer or two and then ended up moving to the ‘Fizz’ and another beach bar where we met Nathan (Eco man) & Teresa (Dive Master Trainee) for more beer, eco chats and then around 11pm we left to get a takeaway and head home to watch LOST

Jen x

We woke early and headed down to the ferry terminal around 9am to meet Scott before he caught the 9.30 boat to Koh Samui for the last leg of his journey. After hugs, slaps on the back were exchanged and tears wiped from our cheeks we watched him toodle off down the pier, his head hung low and bag in tow looking back occassionally to see us waving ridiculously with joy ;-D  LOL

Scott, if you’re reading this, it’s been fabulous to have you here.  We will really miss you XX

On our way home we stopped and picked up a couple of pre-made rolls for lunch as today Si’s got to work for most of the day, which isn’t gong too well at the moment as one of the program’s crashed, his disks to reinstall it are in Mae Haad and would you believe it, it’s chucking it down and it doesnt look as though it’s going to stop for some time.  Typical!!

Si finally managed to find a fix and carry on working for another few hours before we sat back to watch an episode of Eastenders (does anything cheery ever happen?!)
After quickly showering we headed to ‘Dirty Nellys’ for the 7pm ‘Save Koh Tao’ meeting where we discuss what’s going on and around the island to help sustain the islands ecology.  Beach Clean ups (land/sea) updates on the Festival which runs on the 20th & 21st March, up and coming projects etc

After the meeting, it was rehersals for the Crystal Horror Picture Show  …if I havent mention it, we’re doing the Timewarp and hopefully getting one of the guys to do the Sweet Transvestite part which is going to be hilarious.  Simons cleverly done the graphics & titles and luckily for us, one of the Dive masters is a choreographer, I think without her we would have wasted hours, maybe days on getting a routine together.  What a talent!  By the end of the night we’d just about covered everything, less the main leading roles. 

After rehearsals, we stopped at ‘Cafe Del Sol’ for dinner and headed home to watch a couple of episodes of ‘Heroes’

Jen x