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Chris n' Mel in Thailand
Its official...we were swimming with sharks!!!
After our briefing on the boat about what we might see on our dive, that included the possibility of sharks, we had been in the water no more than 5 mins or so and had just descended to 18 metres when our dive master made the signal for 'shark' and pointed into the deep blue ahead of us and started swimming frantically towards it. It was at this moment that the thought went through my head. 'oh, ok so we're swimming after the shark, not away from it'. A few of us were lucky enough to get a quick glimpse of the infamous outline of shark fin and body before it disappeared into the depths.
We carried on with the dive which was at the site named Chumphon Pinnacles right out in the open sea where there are a number of massive pinnacles rising from the seabed almost to the surface. There were masses of fish here and they swim in giant balls to protect themselves from the sharks apparently. The dive site was very impressive but to be honest we were probably far more occupied with creating comedy poses for the digital camera we'd hired for the day, including flapping about getting ourselves back down to the 18 metre depth of our divemaster in lead after accidentally floating to the surface while photographing each other doing floating buddah poses, before he noticed and gave us an underwater rollicking.
Anyway i've jumped ahead of myself with the shark tale, the first day me and chris went diving together (His Dad and Rachael took the day off) we went to a couple of really impressive dive sites, the first one our dive master, 'Chill', told us was nicknamed 'Trigger City' due to the abundance of Titan Triggerfish - the biggest (about 2 feet long and a foot high with big sharp gnashers that leave visible holes in the coral) and most aggressive of this notoriously territorial fish that guards its spot and attacks those that enter it. He also told us there would be many 'swim throughs' through caves and tunnels. As soon as we got down to the bottom we saw a trigger fish and plenty more afterwards but we stayed out of their way and survived with all our fingers :) Just as we were about to enter one of the cave tunnels we spotted a trigger fish inside the tunnel but luckily it swam away before we started going through - didnt fancy meeting him in there halfway! The caves and tunnels were really cool, you felt like an underwater explorer, especially when we started spotting things lurking in the shadows like moray eels and giant stingrays.
For the second dive of the morning we managed to get rid of the annoying German lad who'd gotten under our feet on the first dive by literally swimming on top of us and then having the cheek to tell us he didnt mind - we minded! So we got shut of him sharpish and were well pleased that the next dive was just me and chris and Chill. There were a couple more swim throughs and it was just cool to be swimming above and between all the coral and nosying around at weird fish without masses of divers clanging into one another.
All the dives here have been really cool, different in their own ways (we saw a wreck today with a HUGE stingray lying underneath and mum and dad nemo fish protecting their baby nemos which were about 2-3cm long) and we've done about 10 dives each in total for about half the price it usually costs.
We're feeling pretty rested now after being in one place for a while, plus you cant drink much while diving the next day, so now we've done our last dives we're off for the last shopping spree and night out at our fave beach bars before heading to Bangkok tomorrow for the last few days of our trip :(
Im rushing now as Chris, his dad and Rachael are waiting for me in the bar...speak soon! x
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