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Jackman Travels
Thank you to Mike and Zoe for suggesting this. It was a truly great experience and also a tiring one.
We were picked up at 0600 to start the drive to the port on the mainland where the speedboat to our liveaboard boat took off from. On the trip we had the "pleasure" of driving through Patong and that just confirmed to us that staying in Kata was the right thing to do- Patong appeared to be our holiday from hill destination.
The speed boat took about 1 hour to get to the Liveaboard boat run by South Siam Diving (booked through Nautilus Divers in Kata, Phuket) and within half an hour of arriving after a military like briefing (we think our main dive organiser must be ex-military, perhaps having been thrown out for being too strict in his organisation
style) we were diving- brilliant.
The boat we were staying on was very busy, particularly in the middle of the day when day-tripper joined us for a few hours - there was hardly a place to sit for lunch. Certainly, this is not a luxury, relaxing boat trip, though we had a clean room with good aircon, and you can find some peace and sunshine on the top deck. After all, it's a dive boat, and dive we very much did.
Unfortunately, Suzie had a problem equalising one of her ears. This meant she sat out the afternoon dive. Or was it unfortunate? Andrew went on this dive and the current was incredible. We were totally swept off course and our dive master got lost on at least one occasion. The group had to hang onto rocks several times to rest and hope that the current would calm down and during one of these stops, Andrew had to catch a Swedish woman who had lost her grip and had begun to fly down-current. The most fascinating thing about it was the sensation of feeling the instant that the tide changed. At that moment, the group was clinging to a rock and, suddenly, the world was turned upside-down - imagine how it might feel if without warning, gravity started pulling upwards. Weird. That all said, it was a great experience - Andrew feels really confident in currents now!
The trip also gave us a chance to do our first ever night dives. We all had torches, but still it is an eerie sensation to be in the vast ocean in darkness, with only your beam to follow. It's interesting, but ultimately (and perhaps unsurprisingly) you just don't SEE very much compared to a dive in the day! Suzie didn't really like it, Andrew found it peaceful and liked being able to use the torch to get other divers' attention from a distance. We both, though, thought that it was very cool indeed to be able to turn our torches off and waving our hands around to create bioluminescence that looks very Harry Potter-like.
The daytime dives in general were fantastic. We saw turtles, leopard sharks, huge napoleon fish, giant moray eels (they look evil!), and millions of beautiful fish swimming around beautiful coral. Jacques Cousteau eat your heart out. On the last day, we sailed to Koh Bon (just north of the Similans) to go Manta Ray hunting. We weren't successful on our first dive (though some others were more lucky) but on our second dip (and last time in the water for this trip), we saw TWO! They were about 5m across - just amazing to see something of that size and shape moving so quickly. They look almost bird-like as they flap their wings majestically.
What else... well, the food was very good, there were snacks at all hours (toast with jam AND condensed milk - yum - Andrew's dulce de leche substitute) and enough Pepsi or other sugary, caffeinated drinks to keep even a Scotsman happy. Suzie wasn't quite so keen on the Mirinda - Thai version of Inka Cola, available in a variety of bright colours, none resembling anything in nature.
We were picked up at 0600 to start the drive to the port on the mainland where the speedboat to our liveaboard boat took off from. On the trip we had the "pleasure" of driving through Patong and that just confirmed to us that staying in Kata was the right thing to do- Patong appeared to be our holiday from hill destination.
The speed boat took about 1 hour to get to the Liveaboard boat run by South Siam Diving (booked through Nautilus Divers in Kata, Phuket) and within half an hour of arriving after a military like briefing (we think our main dive organiser must be ex-military, perhaps having been thrown out for being too strict in his organisation
style) we were diving- brilliant.
The boat we were staying on was very busy, particularly in the middle of the day when day-tripper joined us for a few hours - there was hardly a place to sit for lunch. Certainly, this is not a luxury, relaxing boat trip, though we had a clean room with good aircon, and you can find some peace and sunshine on the top deck. After all, it's a dive boat, and dive we very much did.
Unfortunately, Suzie had a problem equalising one of her ears. This meant she sat out the afternoon dive. Or was it unfortunate? Andrew went on this dive and the current was incredible. We were totally swept off course and our dive master got lost on at least one occasion. The group had to hang onto rocks several times to rest and hope that the current would calm down and during one of these stops, Andrew had to catch a Swedish woman who had lost her grip and had begun to fly down-current. The most fascinating thing about it was the sensation of feeling the instant that the tide changed. At that moment, the group was clinging to a rock and, suddenly, the world was turned upside-down - imagine how it might feel if without warning, gravity started pulling upwards. Weird. That all said, it was a great experience - Andrew feels really confident in currents now!
The trip also gave us a chance to do our first ever night dives. We all had torches, but still it is an eerie sensation to be in the vast ocean in darkness, with only your beam to follow. It's interesting, but ultimately (and perhaps unsurprisingly) you just don't SEE very much compared to a dive in the day! Suzie didn't really like it, Andrew found it peaceful and liked being able to use the torch to get other divers' attention from a distance. We both, though, thought that it was very cool indeed to be able to turn our torches off and waving our hands around to create bioluminescence that looks very Harry Potter-like.
The daytime dives in general were fantastic. We saw turtles, leopard sharks, huge napoleon fish, giant moray eels (they look evil!), and millions of beautiful fish swimming around beautiful coral. Jacques Cousteau eat your heart out. On the last day, we sailed to Koh Bon (just north of the Similans) to go Manta Ray hunting. We weren't successful on our first dive (though some others were more lucky) but on our second dip (and last time in the water for this trip), we saw TWO! They were about 5m across - just amazing to see something of that size and shape moving so quickly. They look almost bird-like as they flap their wings majestically.
What else... well, the food was very good, there were snacks at all hours (toast with jam AND condensed milk - yum - Andrew's dulce de leche substitute) and enough Pepsi or other sugary, caffeinated drinks to keep even a Scotsman happy. Suzie wasn't quite so keen on the Mirinda - Thai version of Inka Cola, available in a variety of bright colours, none resembling anything in nature.
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