Wicked Liveaboard #1

Right now I'm on a 4-hour break on dry land between the first and second liveaboard. IT WAS AMAZING!!! There were 16 guests on the boat, 4 of us doing the divemaster course, and 5 staff (plus 6 boat crew).  We went on 8 dives in 3 days and saw lots of amazing things - here are some highlights.

Hemprich's soft corals - come in purple and pink

Lots of damselfish

Crown of Thorns at 65 feet

Octopus coming out of the corals at 70 feet (sorry for the blue color)

Swim throughs at 90 feet

Hawksbill turtle eating coral

Gorgeous corals

Butterflyfish at 80 feet

Butterflyfish pair under a table coral

Feather star

NEMO!

This made me think of "Octopus's Garden" by the Beatles. It was out of this world!

8 dives in 3 days is a lot of diving, especially since we were working on skills. Only 3 of the dives were "fun dives" where we could bring cameras - the other 5 were working on buoyancy, navigation, leading, swimming techniques for leading, and group dynamics underwater. It's great to have these dives combine with practical skills because there's a lot to see, but we can still check things off our "to-do" list. This means we don't get stuck in a pool session, and we can still take cameras on some of the dives.

I'm pretty tired, and I'm probably going to fall asleep as soon as the boat leaves the dock this evening. Then we do it again!

Mom, Can We Get a Dog?

If you're curious about the types of adorable dogs in Thailand, here's a sampling:

the dog that faceplants into sand

the dog that hangs out at Wicked Diving

the dog that lives at our bungalows

the dog that loves attention

the dog that yips every time we walk by and tries to nip our heels

the pig-dog that always looks askance at me

the dog with freakishy large ears

the puppies that need a home! 

the puppy that rolls around in a plastic crate

salty sea puppies

Obsessed? Maybe...

Wicked (Awesome) Diving Staff Trip

Wicked Diving does an annual staff trip before the tourist season starts on November 1st, and we were able to join them. We did 5 really fun dives - meaning we could take photos, explore, and not have to worry about having clients/inexperienced divers around.  The food on the boat is amazing, the cabins were comfortable, and the weather was perfection. We had calm seas, light breezes, and beautiful sunsets. What more could we want?  Here are some highlights from each dive:

1. Boonsung Wreck, ~1 hour north of Khao Lak by boat. The boat was a dredger that sank in the 1970s and was split apart in the 2004 tsunami, creating a huge wreck site with a number of segments in the general area.  This was my first wreck dive and it was AMAZING!! There were points where I couldn't see more than 5 feet in front of me because there were too many fish. Seriously... this was an incredible first fun dive in Thailand.

This is a relatively small school of fish... you can imagine how busy  it was around the wreck!

Shrimps!

Beautiful superstructures are still intact

Honeycomb morays - only visible in the local sites around Khao Lak

2. Night dive at Boonsung wreck. No photos from this, but it was just as beautiful at night as during the day :)

3. Seachart Wreck - this was my first dive to 30+ meters (95+ feet) in depth. The boat sank in the early 2000s carrying a huge load of mature teak wood, so there are still giant logs spilling around the wreck. There weren't quite as many schools of little fish, but there were lots of bigger fish around.

Sea cucumber with beautiful oral tentacles

Sea feathers - these look like giant mopheads slowly moving around the wreck. They are amazing, but  at night they look like tarantulas. It's a little creepy, but cool.

Here's a sampling of what the boat looked like - Dani is at ~95ft, and the boat still goes further down! Great visibility and lighting even at that depth.

4. Secret Reef, ~30 minutes south of Khao Lak.

Corals :D

Nudibranchs getting really friendly

Scorpionfish (my own photo this time)

me, Ana (my instructor right now), and Ploy (who works in the shop and is amazing and helped me pick out some pretty dresses at the tourist shop)

5. Muck Dive - aka a normal dive in Monterey. These dives are usually in places with poor visibility, but usually have a lot of life. That being said, Monterey is MUCH prettier and vibrant than most muck dives in Southeast Asia, but you can see some pretty amazing things on muck dives:

Teeny nudibranch (this pic is kinda blurry, sorry...)

Pipefish

OMG A JELLYFISH... wait no... :(

Octopus coming out of its hole :)

Bottom line: I LOVE DIVING. These are from the 2-night, 3-day liveaboard trip with the staff. The DMTs (Divemasters in Training, me + the 3 guys) are going to help with a reef cleanup on Oct 30-31 and I am so stoked. Then we're on a 6-day liveaboard trip to work on our divemaster skills with clients.  Time is flying by...

First Dives

I finally went diving in the ocean in Thailand! AND IT WAS AWESOME! The water was 82 degrees. Wow. We were at a sandy site so the visibility was only about 30 feet (still good by Monterey standards...) but there were little fish everywhere and it was beautiful. I'll be on a liveaboard trip for the next 3 days to do some wreck diving, with the afternoon free on October 27, and then I'm back on a liveaboard trip for 6 more days. I'll upload when I get the chance!

Here's a sample of the things we saw on the last 4 dives, taken from google image searches. I couldn't use my camera while on the dives because we had Open Water students, but I should be able to take photos for the next few dives.

Blackspotted pufferfish:http://www.freeirishphotos.com/animals/sea_life_photos.html  

Camouflaged scorpionfish: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Scorpion_fish.jpg

Varicose warty sea slug: http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/andamanse/andamanse1206/andamanse120600008/13956473-varicose-wart-slug-phyllidia-varicosa--lembeh-strait-indonesia.jpg

Honeyomb moray eels: http://catbirdinoman.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/honeycombmorayeel01-vi.jpg

And here are some photo from the dives - the battery didn't last long enough to take many pics sadly, so stay tuned for more photos from the next few days of diving:

Liveaboards at the doc

Scorpionfish were all over the place

This cuttlefish was the highlight of our dive!! THEY ARE SO COOL!

When in Thailand... :)

Hopefully I'll have some awesome wreck diving photos to show when I'm back from the liveaboard trip!

Memories Bar

Today the DMTs (Divemasters in Training) had the morning off, so a bunch of us decided to go to Memories Bar in Bangnam about 20 km from Khao Lak.  There was a cabana, surfing, music, and volleyball - what more could we want??

On the way to the beach, we drove along an incredible muddy and pitted road. Oh, there were also elephants.

This was unexpected... and AWESOME.

Surfboard rentals were 100 baht ($3.50 in U.S.) per hour because we're "locals," and the water was actually too warm for me - I wished it were a few degrees cooler. Beautiful sandy beaches and ideal waves for easy surfing! Technically, Memories Bar doesn't open until Oct 25th, but one of our Thai friends knows the owner and they let us hang out and rent boards :)

Well I didn't realize I have such terrible posture, but hey look at my surfboard!

Me and Tuk stood up! Tuk was a little wobbly though...

The gang settles into our bungalow

Model shot

This afternoon, we helped a family of 4 with their Open Water Course. The parents are American and they're living in Bangkok right now with their two daughters age 13 and 11, both of whom are super hardcore swimmers and are getting certified. The 11 year old is teeny but super adventurous, and I think both girls are loving scuba already.

I don't have many exciting photos because we mostly sat at the bottom of the pool and taught them basic scuba skills like how to clear a mask, how to inflate/deflate the BCD, retrieve and clear regulators, but tomorrow is my first dive in the Thailand tropical ocean! SO EXCITED! It will still be a dive with the open water family so nothing too intense - but it'll be my first tropical dive since Australia. I can't wait!

The dark shapes are the Open Water class + instructors. I had to check my gear  - turns out I had a leaky O-ring :(

See I'm diving! I know it seems like I'm just eating and hanging out, but there's actually a lot of work involved in this class too. Promise. It's just really fun work.