Over the course of the night, Captain Tid had piloted us to our next dive site at Northpoint-- fittingly, the northernmost dive site in the Similan Islands.
I woke up Thierry and Maia, who had also slept on the deck, and I started the day with my new favorite breakfast: bananas, peanut butter, and
Within the first 10 seconds of our first dive, my mask broke and began to flood. Uncharacteristically, I remained calm. I signaled to Tam, whose group I'd rejoined, and we exchanged masks at 25 meters. He was able to patch it enough to make it through the dive, and I went on with his. And thank goodness because the dive was awesome, replete with banded sea snakes/kraits, yellow masked angelfish, varicose wartslugs, blue dragons, and the biggest giant moray any of us had ever seen, wedged between two massive slabs of rock. And Lia, the boat's dive photographer captured the whole thing brilliantly.
I was elated to find her by my side when we came across a beautiful hawksbill turtle.
Then we came across another, who posed with a moorish idol.
On our second dive of the day-- this one at Koh Bon Ridge, a few kilometers away-- Lia stuck with our group again, and the two of us clambered after two particularly evasive reef octopi.
Our afternoon snack of oranges, hardly made it into anyone's bellies because most of us used them instead for juggling practice under the tutelage of the adept Thierry. Except for the crew, of course, who instead spent their midday break as they had all the others: fishing or buying the catch of the day off the locals for their own suppers.
For the third dive, we moved along to Taichai Plateau, where we encountered our first school of batfish.
Toward the end of the dive, we came across a current so strong that we had to cling to the coral wall by our fingertips. To get from one section to another, we had to swim harder than I had ever swum in my life and, at one point, form a small chain to catch Sophie, who was perilously close to being swept into the deep.
That afternoon, we bizarrely snacked on mango and French fries while I studied upstairs on the sundeck with Stu. I also accidentally flashed Francisco while attempting to rewrap my sarong, and, gentleman that he is, he began hollering, "I saw a booby!" around the deck. Maturity, thy name is Francisco.
That night we had a fantastic sunset dive at the same location, on which we saw scribbled filefish, andaman sweetlips, brown marbled grouper, red tooth triggerfish, rainbow wrasse, and lots of giant morays and lion fish.
We came up into a thunderstorm and consequently powerful waves that made for one hell of a time getting to and back aboard the boat. Over dinner, we listened to our instructor' stories of other professionals narcing out in depths beyond their skill level-- essentially getting drunk on their air-- thinking they are fish, and swimming away.
Since the weather didn't allow for another deck slumber, I went to bed in my bunk, hoping against hope that the skies would clear by morning, so as not to interfere with our journey to the highlight of the trip: Richelieu Rock.
When I awoke, it appeared that my prayers had been answered, metaphorically speaking, but we didn't head out immediately. The first dive of the day was our third at Tachai Plateau, but the locale still held surprises, like a gigantic napoleon wrasse.
Gigantic to my inexperienced eyes, at least. Those had seen them before said that this one, at a mere meter and a half height and two meter length, barely approached the size to which they CAN grow. I, however, had never seen a bigger fish, and it impressed the heck out of me.
But the best still awaited us, when, a few hours later, we arrived at the renowned Richelieu Rock. There I got to complete my Advanced OW training by testing my skills at fish identification. I couldn't have picked a better dive for it. We saw tomato anemone fish, peppered morays, tiger tail seahorses...
... cornetfish, skunk anemone fish, brown marbled groupers, harlequin shrimp...
...redcoat squirrel fish, juvenile emperor angelfish (which I had to identify and draw, once back on the DQ), and a massive school of chevron barracuda.
I came up from the dive positively giddy. So giddy, in fact, that I didn't realize that the latch didn't catch when I went into the bathroom to change out of my wetsuit, under which I had started wearing nothing because of the rash I'd gotten from my bathing suit strap. At the exact moment between removing my wetsuit and getting dressed again, Fokke slid open the door. I screamed, as did Ya and Gay who stood in the kitchen area, immediately behind him.
As he yelled, "Oh!" and shut the door again, all four of us burst out laughing. After I'd dressed and collected myself, I came back out, apologized to all three of them, and returned upstairs, giggling and hearing Ya and Gay's giggles behind me. I couldn't believe I had unintentionally been seen nude twice in two days!
On our second Richelieu dive we came across jan's pipefish, devil's scorpionfish...
... banded boxer shrimp, and pineapple fish.
One particularly curious batfish seemed to adopt us, staying by our sides from the moment he found us, until we had to ascend to our safety stop. Due to a strong current, we took the stop along an anchor cord.
The force of the water against us was such that we could barely hold on. I became inverted as we thrashed about. I loved every second of it.
Our night dive at Tachai Southeast Ridge held few surprises but it did have the added suspense of a faulty flashlight. When it went out, I attempted to get my group's attention, but that can be hard to do in the pitch black of the ocean by night, WITHOUT A LIGHT. I managed to get it back on for a few minutes at a time by banging it with my hand and kept close to my group in the interims.
That night, a few of us played games and finished my red wine, but then it was off to bed. I stayed up just until midnight in order to wish Thierry his first
Happy Birhday, then I fell solidly asleep.
A stunning sunrise roused me for our last morning of diving.
At breakfast, the dive masters surprised Thierry with an M&M pancake cake.
On our first dive, at Koh Bon Ridge, I really began to feel how much 12 prior dives had taken out of me. I enjoyed it, of course, but I felt sluggish and glad that the next one would be our last.
Between dives, I panicked when I couldn't find my dive computer and thought I might be out several hundred dollars, if I needed to replace it. I searched everywhere and eventually found that another diver had grabbed mine accidentally. What a relief!
They'd saved the Boonsung Wreck for last. Visibility wasn't great, but what we could see amazed me. I'd never even heard of the honeycomb eel, but once I'd seen it, I couldn't think of even one possible evolutionary reason for its appearance, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Lion and puffer fish abounded, and a sucker fish chased us, trying to attach to each of us in turn, and almost succeeding with Maia, who began to bleed after he bit her. It was a fun last dive.
Back on board, we put our gear in cleaning tubs to go back ashore. We cleaned out our bunks, got the last signatures from our dive masters in our dive books, and hung out on the main deck for the 4-hour journey back to Khao Lak.
On arrival, we bid farewell to the crew, the boat, and the ridiculously addictive cookies onboard.
That night, I split a triple with Fokke and Thierry, and the three of us met Stu, Lia, Francisco and Virginie for birthday drinks at a local watering hole. I felt a bit wobbly back on land, so I didn't move on to the second location, but I'd had a great time in any case.
The next morning, Fokke and Thierry hugged me goodbye. I called my Grandma to wish her a happy 86th birthday. Then it was on to a bus and off from Khao Lak to Kao Sak!
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Location:Khao Lak, Thailand
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