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Similan Islands Tour - Day Three
We are on our way back to Khao Lak on the luxury speed boat. The last three days have been great. Today was the best as we saw a giant spotted eagle ray! It was beautiful, at first we thought it was a manta ray because of how large it was. It must have been at least three meters wide and the tail on it seemed to go on for at least four meters. Our luck didn't stop there though, Chris spotted a beautiful leopard shark (which I missed unfortunately) he thinks it was at least two meters long. We also saw some really huge tuna and trevally (I still think of tuna in a can so forget it comes from a really big fish).
The first dive was early in the morning at Koh Bon Pinnacle, we went to thirty meters and the water was crystal clear as usual. Every dive site has got better and better, I know I keep saying it but they really have. I wish we could have captured it all on camera but the photos don't come out well enough to do it justice. It was like watching fish make traffic, large shoals were crossing over each other, fish were pulling into stations to be cleaned, everywhere we looked we were always surrounded by so many colourful fish with beautiful patterns. At the end of the dive Sivan our instructor led us away from the reefs shelf and into the deep blue. Suddenly it felt like we were flying. The water was still very clear and for a while we could still see the bottom, it was like looking down at a whole new world. At first I felt vertigo and thought I might suddenly fall at any moment, when we looked up we could see the suns rays piercing through the surface of the water. We played around for a bit, making shapes and doing the running man while the current carried us, we must have looked like idiots lol. Sivan took us a little further out until we couldn't see the bottom anymore, I think we were twenty meters from the surface and at least sixty meters from the bottom, we were floating in the magnificent royal blue ocean. Spots of luminescent blue were dotted about beneath us, the sea now looked like a starry sky, that's when out of nowhere we spotted the huge eagle ray! We raced over to get a little closer, Chris tried to take a photo but the ray was too deep that the camera wouldn't focus. We watched in amazement before it gracefully flew through the water and disapeared back into the blue. We had spotted it just in time, Chris was now really low on air so we began our safety stop at five meters. We all danced about like prats pleased with ourselves, Sivan couldn't wait to get back on board to rub it in the other instructors faces lol.
The second dive was at Koh Bon, West Ridge. We came across one small yellow fish that could have passed for a simple gold fish, it was obsessed with a stick poking out from a rock and tried to attack anyone that came near it. It was really funny, this fish would have taken anything on!
Unfortunately the dive didn't last very long because a new guy in our group got low on air so quickly. Our average bottom time had been around fifty five minutes on all of our other dives so we were all gutted when this dive only lasted thirty eight minutes. When we surfaced we suddenly realised there was no boat around to collect us. We waited, floating around for twenty minutes until another group also surfaced. Still no boat appeared. It started to feel like that film 'Open Water' lol. Me and Chris floated about with our heads under the water looking at all the different types of jelly fish that now surrounded us. We waited an hour in total before the boat found us, Colin wasn't happy because he burnt his head in the sun, while me and Chris just went browner lol :-)
Our last dive was at Koh Bon, North Ridge. We saw a really huge moray eel! Chris went in closer to get a good photo, almost a little too close, the eel started to open its mouth and show off it's teeth as it stared at Chris. Any closer and I'm sure the eel would have gone for him. We also saw all the same stuff from the previous dives but no rays this time. We did find a really small lion fish about the size of a penny and two bearded sporpion fish. Chris pointed them both out to me, their camouflage was so good I almost didn't see them. I tried to take a photo but everytime I took my eyes of them, I couldn't find them again! Luckily Chris has a better eye and got some good shots.
The tour cut into our budget but it was so worth it, we saw some beautiful sights and had so much fun, and I had the best nights sleep!!!
We are almost back at Khao Lak now, we're going to check back into the Jai Bungalows if they have availability, then do nothing!
Charlotte & Chris
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