My entire dive trip was organized by Marcia Fisk Ong (Quero on ScubaBoard), of Gekko Scuba Divers. I also hired Marcia as a dive master. With the majority of my dives here in Thailand being "vacation-type" dives, I'm on a boat with others and end up in a group with a DM. I often am the last one in the group to finish looking at and photographing stuff, so I'm constantly trying to catch up to the group. So for this trip, I hired Marcia to organize all of my dives and be my DM for each day. This allowed us to be a buddy team of two divers. So we got to plan our own dives and dive our own plans. It was fantastic! For anybody going to Phuket, I highly recommend this. Other than paying a bit extra for Marcia as a DM, the cost of the dive trips was no more expensive than if I had booked them by myself. But the days were planned based on my requests. But enough of that. Let's talk about the diving!
The first day, we dove with West Coast Dive Shop, leaving from the Chalong Bay Pier for three dive sites: Shark Point, Anemone Reef and Koh Dok Mai.
Each dive offered something different. Shark Point is covered in soft corals, with lots of the typical reef fish. (Alas, no sharks on this day.) Anemone Reef is absolutely covered in anemones, with their various anemonefish darting in and out. And Koh Dok Mai is a beautiful wall dive with lots of "macro" life such as wonderful nudies.
A dive report with an overview of the trip and the Day 1 report with pictures can be found here. But for those of you that don't want to make the extra few mouse clicks, here are some pictures that highlight the day.
First, from Shark Point: A blackspotted puffer fish, Arothron nigropunctatus.
And some "green cup coral." (Not sure of the common name or scientific name of this one, but I think it's beautiful.)
And from Anemone Reef, a giant moray eel.
And a black-blotched porcupine fish, Diodon liturosus that was "sleeping" on the reef.
And from Koh Dok Mai, a beautiful nudibranch, the ocellate phyllidia, Phyllidia ocellata.
And a banded coral shrimp, Stenopus hispidus.
All of the critter IDs are to the best of my ability. If I get them wrong and somebody lets me know, I'll be changing them on my webpage.
My Day 2 dive report is in the works and I'll let you know when it's finished. But for a "tease" I'll be sharing a picture and video of a cuttlefish from our night dive on Koh Phi Phi Ley.
Until then, this is your Thailand Dive Correspondent signing out.
