A Pirate's Life for Me

well I have returned from yet another trip to the south of Thailand.  This time it was for a totally spur of the moment diving trip.  Alaa and I decided to go diving about 24 hours before we left.  We planned the trip about 6 hours before we left and bought our tickets at the airport.  We flew on Air Asia to Phuket.  Air Asia was really nice - it's supposed to be the budget airlines of Asia, but it was really nice.  The plane was an Airbus, every seat was leather, all of the controls on the plane were touch controlled.  It was a really nice experience - didn't feel "budget" at all.  When we arrived in Phuket, we were taken to a guesthouse.  It was fine because all we did was sleep there.  We were being picked up at 6:30 the next morning so we were in no mood to go out and explore Phuket.  The next morning, we got our gear and headed to the pier.  

Now a note about the diving in Phuket - most of the places that everyone wants to go to, which we were fortunate enough to dive, can only be accessed by a liveaboard.  A liveaboard is a boat that you live on.  Most liveaboard trips are anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks or longer.  Our trip was 3 days/2 nights.  I think this was the perfect length for my first trip.  It was long enough to get in ten dives, but I didn't feel overly exhausted after it.  Anyways, when we left in the morning, we had about a four hour boat ride to our first dive site.  During this time we were briefed about the boat, checked into our rooms and set up our gear.  Our rooms on the boat were quite small - to get a picture of my room, I had to stand outside and on the other side of the hallway to get a picture of the whole room.  I'd say the room was probably 7' x 4' - pretty small.  But it was fine.  We were only in the room to sleep and when we went to sleep, we were usually so tired we passed out before our heads hit the pillow.  

Here's the divesites we did:

Thursday

Ko Tachai - Southeast Reef

Ko Tachai - Northeast Rocks

Ko Surin Tai - South Reef (Night Dive)

Friday

Hin Genesis (Dive Excursion)

Ko Chi - White House Rock

Richelieu Rock 

Richelieu Rock (Night Dive)

Saturday

The Dome at Ko Tachai Pinnacle

Ko Bon - West Ridge

Boonsung Wreck

We were in the water every morning at 7:30 am and usually out of the water from out last dive by 9pm - which made for quite long days.  Also, a side note about Richelieu Rock - this is known to be one of the best dive sites in the world.  When Jacques Cousteau dove Richelieu Rock, he named it one of his top ten dive sites in the world.  Pretty cool to dive the same site as Jacques Cousteau.  He actually named the dive site - which is why it has a French name in the middle of Thailand.  Most dives were around 60 minutes and we went anywhere from 60 feet to 120 feet.  Most of the dives in the Andaman Sea are really deep and for experienced divers.  Some dives had pretty strong current.  Also, the visibility is not the best.  In the waters here, there are a lot of small organisms that are eaten by the "big stuff" us divers like to see, like manta rays and the allusive whale shark.  So the visibility never really gets that good - but that's a fair trade off to make.  Also, the waters here have massive thermoclines.  A thermocline is where cold and warm water converge.  So you'll be swimming along is nice warm water and all of a sudden the water temp will drop 10 to 15 degrees.  And it's strange too because you can see them coming in the water.  At the point where the warm and cold water meets, the water makes rays.  It looks like the rays that come off the road on a hot day.  But these thermoclines also attract the "big stuff."

Some of the stuff I saw includes two manta rays, a turtle, a leopard shark, a nurse shark and tons of cool fish.  I saw schools of lion fish, several scorpion fish and stone fish.  Tons of eel - blue ribbon eel, painted morays, brown spotted eels and white eye eels.  Sea cucumbers.  Lots of trigger fish and hog fish.  Lots of stingrays - cowtail and blue spotted.  Moorish idol.  Mantis shrimp.  Octopus.  Lobster.  Nudibranches.  The waters here are just full of stuff that is so different from anything I've seen before.  Everything seems so much more vibrant here.  I feel like the fish all come in different colors here.

Enjoy the pics (below) and the videos (I added them to the side bar and they're on YouTube):

the view out my window - this is what I woke up to every morning

my life for three days

the sunrise on the second day

the dining area on the boat

bedroom

the dive gear area

blue ribbon eels

angel fish

(well apparently i've reached my picture quota - so be sure to visit my pictures website on the sidebar to see more pictures)

Everything about the boat was great.  There were four divemasters and five thai crew (cook, captain, and three boat mates).  The food on the boat was amazing.  Food was served after every dive and the cook did a nice job of creating the perfect blend between western food and Thai food.  It really hit the spot after diving.  There were two sundecks that I took full advantage of, as I'm now black as night.  And after ten dives, I have salt water so far up my sinuses everything tastes salted.  But it was a great experience and I can't wait to do it again.

Anyways, after three days on the liveaboard, we were more than ready to go home, so we didn't really do much in Phuket.  We went to the beach and waited to return home.

In other news, a while back I planned a "Day of Modern Marvels", as I coined it.  We were going to visit some galleries throughout Bangkok and go to the tallest building in the city.  We ended up making it to the tallest building - the Baiyoke Sky Hotel - and the Queen's Gallery.  It was a really cool day and everyone had fun - thanks to Lonely Planet.  That book sure comes in handy sometimes.  Some pics are below.

the sunsetting on another day in the city

 the view from the top - the 84th floor

As for this weekend, my boss, Marion Lowry with DEPARTURES magazine and Black Ink Magazine, is in Asia on business.  So I am going to spend the weekend in and out of the Four Seasons shadowing her while she is working in Bangkok.  So it will be a nice change of pace.  And next week I am going to the Gibbons Experience to leave the country within my 90-day period.

That's all for now.