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Similan Islands Tour - Day One
We got up at 6am this morning and I snoozed until 6:30am. I checked the iPad and noticed my mum tried to call me last night on Skype. We are seven hours ahead so I worked out that it must have been around midnight back at home, its Friday night in the UK so no doubt my mum and sister would be up. I tried them both. Yep, mother was up but about to go to bed. I had a quick chat with her then called my sister. As usual she had a few people round drinking. I managed to squeeze in a chat with her before getting nudged by Chris reminding me to get ready lol. I don't know why he worries, the bus was bound to be late and it was by twenty minutes lol.
The bus took us to the main office to meet up with other guests on the tour. We had some sandwiches and hot chocolate for breakfast, then we were driven to the port to catch a huge luxury speed boat. It wasn't very busy so there was plenty of space to stretch out and enjoy the sun. One hour later we arrived at the boat we would be staying on for the next two nights. It was lovely and big, made up of three decks. The first deck had the cabins and diving equipment on. The middle deck was for eating meals, chilling out, and dive briefings. The top deck was a huge sun deck with plenty of cushioned sunbeds on. I already had my eye on one of them.
At 11am we had our first dive briefing with Brad our instructor. I buddied up with Chris and Colin the other guy in our group buddied up with Brad. The dive was at Elephant Rock, it was a deep one with a depth of thirty meters and with plenty of swim through's. We started the dive with a negative entry which means as soon as we jumped off the boat we sunk straight to thirty meters in about a minute. Brad told us in the breifing that the swim throughs would be very spacious so we wont feel claustrophobic. They wern't, they were very tight! I remember thinking as we all squeezed through, if these were the spacious ones, how bloody tight were the narrow ones?! Brad later told us they were the narrow ones lol, we didn't appear nervous when he mentioned swim throughs in the breifing so he thought sod it. They were a lot of fun so I'm glad he took us through them. I described the dives in Koh Tao as amazing and beautiful, this site was even better! I have never seen so much life underwater before and the visibility was crystal clear even at thirty meters! We saw sting rays, moray eels, sea slugs, garden eels, andamen sweet lips (leopard fish), white puffer fish and tones more I don't know the names of! Then there was all the beautifully bright coral and plant life, it was stunning.
Lunch was ready and waiting for us when we finished the dive, the food was really good and in buffet style so Chris ate his heart out. I laughed when he put his hand into the biscuit tub, I said to Colin that they better have a big supply on the boat because Chris will finish them off before we leave lol.
Our next dive was at 2pm. Chris had a head ache from the last dive so he stayed out of the sun until then, I went straight for the top deck and grabbed that sun bed I was eyeing up earlier :-)
The second dive was at Turtle Rock, with a depth of twenty six meters and at least fifteen meters visibility. Brad was our instructor again. We saw more moray eels, magnificent partner shrimp, lots of trigger fish (Trevor!) tapestry shrimp, a huge snail and loads more, and we went through lots of really small swim throughs again.
When we reached the surface we were thrown a line and dragged back by a small boat. Now that's what you call lazy diving, we didn't even have to swim back!
Our last dive of today was our sunset dive at Beacon Reef at 5:30pm. Our instructor was Sivan, we only went to sixteen meters this time.
We saw a big school of bat fish swimming around the top of a wreck, lion fish, and all the others mentioned in our last dives. We still haven't seen any rays or sharks yet, hopefully we will spot some tomorrow.
Overall the day has been great! We've just checked into our cosy cabin and are now snuggled in bed. I was telling Chris on the coach over to Khao Lak yesterday how much I missed a comfy bed with a really puffy duvet, now I'm wrapped up in one! Our first dive tomorrow is at 7:40am, Chris might have to drag me out of this bed lol.
Charlotte & Chris
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