Ocean Sports does Thailand…Part 2

(Feb 13^th 2013)

“Beach Time” in the stunning Similan Islands

Oh my goodness people, live aboards are pretty much the best thing ever! If you live to dive, you have got to try one. We’re on day 3 of 4 on the Manta Queen II of Khao Lak Scuba Adventures as I write this. After a crowded ferry ride from Koh Phi Phi to Phuket and a long bus up the coast to Khao Lak we boarded our boat around 9pm and set sail for the Similan Islands right away. After a boat briefing, introductions to the crew and a late dinner, we turned in to our tiny little berths. Let me tell you, trying to sleep that first night was something of an adventure! I’ve never been on a boat for more than a day before and never overnight. As our berth is at the front of the boat we found ourselves rocking steadily up and down all night long, head first at that. I took some 12 hour Gravol and hoped for the best. I’m pleased to report that I’ve got the hang of it now…I have sea legs!

Our home away from home, the Manta Queen II

Our wake up call was blessedly late at 8am. If that sounds early to you, you will not like our schedule for the other 3 days! We had 1^st breakfast (that’s right…1^st breakfast…) and then we jumped in for our first dive. Beautiful Anita’s Reef did not disappoint, with fields of garden eels poking their heads up from the sand to sway in the current, plenty of fish, and even a 6ft blacktip reef shark making an appearance at the end! Also, the viz is awesome at 80-90ft! After the dive we had 2^nd breakfast (that’s right…2^nd breakfast!) and chilled out for 2 hours before the next dive. Our days go as follows: wake up, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, drink, sleep…repeat! It’s an intense pace as our dives are all an hour long and quite deep, usually all between 60-100ft. As I mentioned here, we’re all on nitrox and it’s a darn good thing; with this many deep dives a day it’s the only way we can get the bottom time. We’re also doing extra long safety stops (I explain what that is in this post), 5 minutes instead of the usual 3. This is simply because our dives are deep and we’re doing so many a day; a little extra conservatism never hurt anybody and its just another way we can mitigate the risk of decompression illness.

just hanging out at my safety stop!

The crew took mercy on us the first morning with the 8am wake-up call but every day since its been 6am, before the sun is even up. This morning at 6:53am, when the sun had just barely broken the watery horizon, I found myself already 42ft below the waves. Who AM I these days?!? Halfway through our sunrise dives the fish finally wake up and get going for the day. The first bit is a tad boring down there but then its awfully fun to watch the reef come alive again as the sun gets higher in the sky.

Today we did 3 dives on a site called Richelieu Rock – an isolated pinnacle quite far off shore that was famously discovered by Jacques Cousteau long ago. Its simply breathtaking. Teeming with life and activity, more colors than a rainbow, and packed full of the tiniest little creatures divers get so excited about. Peacock mantis shrimp strutting around with their bold tail feathers. Harlequin shrimp shying away from the limelight despite their vibrant polka dot markings. Ornate ghost pipe fish so strange I have to blink a few times to make sure I’m really seeing what I think I’m seeing. The ever elegant tiger tail seahorse. The list just goes on! I would have been happy to dive that one site for the whole week. Take my word for it, the Similan & Surin islands definitely live up to their reputation.

crazy looking batfish

the uber bizarre moth fish – he walks across the rocks rather than swim

tiger tail seahorse, feeding upside down

one of my favorites, peacock mantis shrimp. Isn’t he funky?!

Four dives a day on a boat is so much easier than from land. Our gear gets set up once and that’s it. There’s no changing tanks or reloading our weight pockets, the only work we have to do is the huffing and puffing of peeling in and out of our wetsuits and the rest is done for us. Our only task between dives is to drip dry in the sun, have some food, then lay around listening to some tunes and pouring over the fish identification books until its time to get wet again. This 4 day trip is exactly the right way to discover if live aboards are going to be something we enjoy, as its not too long in case it isn’t. No surprise here though, we love it! We’re already talking about where and when the next one will be. The rest of the group is having a great time as well, some of them even joining right in on the “so which boat do we do next?” conversations. That said, we’ll be upgrading a bit on the next one. We chose to do the Similan Islands not only because they’re a world class diving destination, but also because the trips are short and inexpensive; a perfect compliment to our week on Koh Phi Phi and a great 1^st Ocean Sports trip for us.

Surfaced from our twilight dive to a beautiful sunset and rainbow combo! Gorgeous!

There is nothing luxurious about this boat but that suits us just fine this time. You get what you pay for and we’re getting excellent value for money. There are 18 divers on board, plus 5 guides and a full Thai crew too. The boat has 2 double berths, 5 with 2 singles and 1 quad share room. There are 3 little bathrooms for everyone to share and only 1 towel each. At 4 dives a day plus a shower in the evening, those towels are really getting a workout…and that’s the least gross way I can put it! Note to self: bring own towel next time, so I can have one for fresh water and one for salt water. Also, next time I’ll bring enough bathing suits that I can change into a dry one after every dive; being wet for 13 hours a day does get uncomfortable. And a private head would be awesome too. I’m getting a real education here! All in all, I love life at sea. It’s simple, honest, relaxing and all this fresh air is good for the soul.

We will definitely be doing this live aboard thing again, but that doesn’t surprise you much does it? Got to go…its dive time!

the Ocean Sports crew! (Dave is hiding behind Angie though, oops!)

Thanks to Warren for the underwater pictures! If you’d like to see more of his fantastic portfolio, check out his photo blog at www.warrenmckay.wordpress.com

Ocean Sports does Thailand…Part 1

(Feb 10^th 2013)

1 week and 13 glorious dives later we’ve run out of time here on Koh Phi Phi and are preparing to make our way up to Khao Lak tomorrow to board our floating home for the remainder of the trip. We’ve had a very eventful week here with a few misadventures along the way! But before I get to those…lets talk diving!

What a great lookin’ group we are!

Here in Phi Phi with Blue View Divers we dive off of longtail boats – its basically a wooden skiff that’s been set up to hold tanks in the middle with a re-purposed car engine on the back for propulsion. It’s a wet’n wild ride; nothing stays dry! To enter the water you either roll off the back (1 person from each side at the same time so the boat stays balanced) or just toss your kit overboard and hop in after it. We’ve done 4 days of local sites – meaning around the nearby islands of Phi Phi Ley and the Bidas (Nai and Nok). The sites are gorgeous, full of anemones and soft corals, positively bursting with life and color! It wasn’t uncommon for there to be so many schools of fish they literally obscured our views of the reef…pretty awesome problem in my books! Our surface intervals were spent touring through Pi-Leh lagoon and having lunch on the beach of Maya Bay (where the 1999 movie The Beach was filmed). It’s such a beautiful spot there, and will forever hold a special place in my heart, as it is where Warren surprised me with a proposal. I was so dazed and distracted by my newly engaged status I don’t remember a single thing from the second dive that day after he popped the question!

Maya Bay – where he asked “will you marry me?” and i said “yes!”

it even goes well with my gear :P

“Blue View’s Beach” in Maya Bay. Picnic lunches there for surface intervals…doesn’t get any better!

The other 2 days diving were spent venturing further out to sea to dive at a place called Koh Haa – literally “5 islands” with a lagoon in the middle. It was a long boat ride out and back but it was a fun day full of donuts, diving, sun tanning (or sun burning, for most of us) and jumping off the top deck into the lagoon. The other day we did 3 dives – King Cruiser wreck (a sunken car ferry accused of insurance fraud), Shark Point and Anemone Reef. All of them were deep so we used enriched air to extend our bottom times. Room air contains 21% oxygen and 79% nitrogen so one of the ways divers can extend the amount of time they spend at depth (limited mainly by the accumulation of nitrogen in our bodies) is to increase the amount of oxygen in our tanks, thus decreasing the amount of nitrogen we’re breathing so we don’t accumulate it as quickly at depth. We used a blend of 32% O2, but nitrox certified divers can use anything from 22%-40%. For most of our group this was their first time using nitrox as they were only just certified before we all left for Thailand. We’ll be doing 4 dives a day on the live aboard and unlimited nitrox is only 2000 baht (about 60$) so we’re all planning on taking full advantage of that.

Beautiful Koh Haa

We were all lucky bums this week and got to see several leopard sharks, about 7 to 12 blacktip reef sharks, schools of barracuda, tons of clownfish (Nemos!), all sorts of shrimp, hawksbill turtles, eels galore and TONS more! I was continually shocked at the variety here – with the exception of the new-to-me Indo Pacific species, I’ve seen all of these things before…but I’ve never seen ALL of them together, on every dive. It was sublime.

map puffer

Hey look! We found Nemo!

Cuttle fish – easily one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen underwater

moray eel getting cleaned up by a shrimp!

Banded sea snake – one of the most poisonous creatures on the planet, but very shy

Anemone crab

blue dragon

this guy needs no introduction

Juvenile yellow boxfish

what we all came to see – leopard shark! As juveniles, their markings resemble zebra stripes

As for those misadventures…

On one occasion our boat’s propeller got tangled in a submerged mooring line and ripped the engine right off the boat. The captain took quite the blow to the chest and after an impromptu medical assessment (helps to have a doc and a nurse on board!) we sent him off to the hospital. Thankfully, he suffered only bruises and is taking some time off now to recover. It was scary but no one else was hurt and Blue View was so organized they had another boat called and we were off diving within no time at all. We’re also down a trip leader for the Similans live aboard. Sadly, Alexandra is sick; poor girl is so dizzy she can’t even open her eyes. She’s off to the hospital too and we wish her a speedy recovery! We’re definitely going to miss her! My personal “favorite” misadventure was the jellyfish incident. We were dropped on a shallow reef out in open ocean and all we could see in every direction was sea nettle jellyfish. We had to descend through them but I somehow managed to avoid being stung. Our dive around the reef was interrupted a few times by a wall of them so we’d simply turn around and go back the way we’d come. It was no biggie…until the end of the dive. We spotted a bunch of leopard sharks and of course hung out with them for a bit but this cost us dearly as we were then smack in the middle of thousands and thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of those painful jellies. Thankfully I was in a full wetsuit and only got stung on my face, neck, and ears on the way up. Warren was in board shorts; poor guy’s legs got it bad. Yikes!

I also had an issue with my regulators on the very first dive in Koh Phi Phi; they started free flowing underwater as some small part in the second stage (the part that goes in my mouth) failed. It wasn’t quite as fast a free flow as what we practice for in our open water certification, but it was fast enough that I had return to the surface immediately and switch over to rental regs. Watching my gauge and seeing my tank empty of air quite quickly was uncomfortable, but I’m proud of myself for handling my first real underwater problem with calm. I didn’t panic, I recognized there was a problem and that it could not be fixed underwater, signaled the guide and, after making sure the rest of the group was under the watchful eyes of another DM, we made a safe ascent to the surface. This may seem trivial to those of you who have been diving for ages, but for little old me I was happy to know that my training and experience thus far prepared me to cope with the situation, as I’d never really been “tested” before. This is especially good news since now that I’m a dive professional I’ll have to solve other people’s problems underwater too!

Overall we’ve had a relaxing week here enjoying, and alternatively escaping, the intense heat of the sun. Our trip guests filled their evenings with Thai massages, romantic beach side dinners and plenty of spicy food. We loved diving with Blue View; Alexandra, Kris, Caroline and Narong were fantastic guides and so fun to dive with. They had great eyes for the little stuff and their enthusiasm for diving was contagious. It makes such a huge difference to dive with people who aren’t just “working” but truly loving it too! Hearing Caroline literally squeal with delight through her regulator underwater put a huge grin on my face every time as I’d turn towards her excitedly, knowing she’d found something awesome. If Koh Phi Phi is on your diving bucket list too you couldn’t do better than Blue View.

Happy diving friends and thanks for tuning in!

Koh Phi Phi

(February 1st 2013)

Loh Dalum Bay

After 2 weeks traveling the south of Thailand and the capital city of Bangkok I’m pleased to tell you we’ve arrived on Koh Phi Phi and are busily preparing to receive our Ocean Sports group! There will be 12 of us in all, counting the trip leaders Warren and Alexandra, and we’re starting here with a week of diving in the local marine park as well as longer day trips out to the surrounding islands. We’re staying at the newly renovate Paradise Resort on Long Beach, away from the chaotic townsite and where we’ll have spectacular sunsets every night. Am I making you wish you were here with us? Good! Sign up for our next trip *wink wink*!

Our rooms…those of us not in the beach front cabanas that is!

eating with toes in the sand never gets old

Long Beach, where the hotel is

 

Gorgeous views of Phi Phi Ley

It’s hard to believe this tropical paradise was the site of such devastation after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. All I see are beautiful beaches, fusia flowers and turquoise waters. The limestone jungle-covered cliffs rising up out of the sea are a spectacular site and underwater the reefs are vibrant and full of life.
There is nothing fancy here, the shops and restaurants are very rustic – this isn’t a wealthy part of the world but the people are resourceful and do lots with the little they have. No one seems to want for much, despite having so much less than we do back home. It’s a good reminder to be thankful for all that I have, for the opportunity to come here and experience a new culture, and especially to appreciate the important things. So what if the toilet paper is crappy and the power cuts in and out? I get to be here experiencing it!
As always friends, stay tuned!

Turtle Island (Koh Tao)

This small island in the Gulf of Thailand was a 6 hr bus ride and a 2 hr ferry from Bangkok and supposedly the best diving the Gulf has to offer, attracting thousands of visitors who come to learn to scuba dive. Naturally, we wanted to check it out! We did 5 days of diving there, 10 dives in all. Sadly we were more than a little disappointed.  Our visibility was quite limited at 40-30 ft and there wasn’t very much to see . I suspect it’s due to the sheer volume of divers (and mostly inexperienced ones at that) in the water at every site at all times, but there wasn’t much variety and very little coral formations either, mostly just small patches growing on huge underwater boulders. We also discover quickly that we were that exception rather than the rule – experienced divers arriving with our own gear looking to do lots of dives… We got funny looks and some blank stares more than a few times. The dive shops there weren’t well set up for divers like us either, everything from gear storage to bottom times required some improvising. For example, our hotel (which was partnered with the shop we dove with) included breakfast but that was served beginning at 7:30am and the boat left at 7am… 7- Eleven croissants became our best friend. We did manage to see a few cool things though, no diving is ever a total loss! We especially loved the giant clams embedded into the coral heads and the seas of swaying anemones and their resident pink anemone fish darting in and out to investigate us. We also saw tons of nudibranchs.

Huge clams!

lets play…name that nudi!

2 Days in Bangkok

Our first taste of Thailand was the bustling city of Bangkok. It was a refreshing blend of old and new, of ancient and modern, all crammed every which way as far as the eye could see (which incidentally isn’t very far due to the heavy smog that blankets the city all day long). We wandered the streets, did some shopping at Siam Paragon, Center World, and MBK – the first two are swanky high end places while the later was more like an enormous indoor street market. We got thai massages too, which Warren enjoyed much more Than  I did (lucky him)…I’m still not sure how such a small friendly woman could possibly inflict so much pain! The next morning was spent marvelling at the Grand Palace. It’s incredibly beautiful, ornate and exquisite. It was also staggeringly hot, over 40 degrees Celsius with no breeze and I found myself suffering from a bit of heat exhaustion. After taking some time in the air conditioning to recover and hydrate we set off to hire a long tail boat to tour us along the river that crosses through the city. We got a good look at Wat Arun (also know as the Temple of Dawn, the only Khmer style temple within the city) as well as the profound level of poverty around the city canals. We capped the night off with some super pricey cocktails and dinner 56 stories up at the Red Sky rooftop bar. We heard this was an experience not to be missed while in Bangkok, and who are we to disagree with the travel books? 

 

Here’s a few pictures of our time in the city

A long ways up at the Red Sky bar

a typical street market in Bangkok

The Grand Palace

The Grand Palace

The Grand Palace

Thailand Bound

Travel day is finally here! Tomorrow morning we’re off to the Land of Smiles. I’m so excited to be going somewhere so exotic, so far away, and so different from what I’ve always known! I am also a teeny tiny bit…scared. Its a healthy fear though, the kind you get when you’re about to jump outside of your comfort zone. So here we go!

We’re starting our adventure in Bangkok, after a 24 hour journey. We’ll spend a few days there getting over the jet lag and getting our bearings of the city. We’re definitely going to spend lots of time wandering around, cruise down the river, check out some temples and probably also visit Siam Ocean World (because where else would two fish geeks in a new country feel most at home without actually being underwater??). Next up is an early morning bus ride down to Chumphon to catch the ferry to Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand. We’ll be diving for about a week with Simple Life Divers then heading over to the neighboring island of Koh Samui for a couple days of relaxing before hopping another ferry, another bus, and then yet another ferry to cross the south of Thailand to the Andaman Sea side of things.

There on Koh Phi Phi we are welcoming our fabulous group from Ocean Sports for a week of local diving and then a live aboard in the Similan and Surin Islands! After that we all say our goodbyes to new friends and its off to Kaya beach Phuket for a couple days before flying back to Bangkok for our last day in Thailand.

I’m ready for beautiful beaches, smiling faces, new friends, spicy food, and, most importantly, lots of DIVING!! And to make it extra special, I’ll be celebrating my 100th dive too! I haven’t decided yet whether I’m bold enough to mark that occasion as scuba tradition calls for or not… Have you got a good 100th dive story to share? Tell us about it!

Cheers everyone!

Self-Improvement Week…Evaluation

This post is long overdue…but they do say better late then never for a reason right? Last you all heard from me I had set out 5 goals for myself for my spontaneous trip to Cozumel & The Blue Angel Resort. It was to be my first ever trip that didn’t involve some formal training, and I wanted to make sure that I continued to focus on improving my skills. Well. About that. You see, I just…couldn’t do it. The no formal training bit I mean. I really did have the best intentions but found myself with a Divemaster crew pack and piles of homework within 2 days of arriving. C’est la vie.

I’ll get into the Divemaster details in my next post but for now here’s a brief evaluation of those original 5 goals.

1) Deploy the safety sausage with confidence

Good news – I figured out that to prevent my reg from annoyingly free flowing as soon as its out of my mouth (even if  I point the mouthpiece down right away), I started increasing the breathing resistance on it before I removed it. This made focusing on inflating the sausage significantly easier but I still struggled with getting enough air into it that its full once it reaches the surface. I can get it to the surface…but then it just sort of floats there like a limp noodle. In short, I didn’t make as much progress with this as I’d wanted to and mostly that’s because I just kept avoiding all the opportunities to practice. I’d just tell myself I had enough on my plate as it was, and kept letting myself off the hook.

2) Become more comfortable on deep dives

Big surprise for me with this one. Turns out, I’m already comfortable on deep dives! I left my last trip still feeling anxious going deep and arrived to Cozumel  expecting much of the same but…nothing. No anxiety, no discomfort, no lack of confidence. Nothing. I felt perfectly fine. It was awesome!! Granted, I didn’t do any dives deeper than about 85 ft but even still my nerves never kicked in. I guess I sold myself a bit short thinking this was still going to be such an issue for me. Man, did it feel good when I realized it wasn’t!

3) Take more responsibility for navigation

This is a tough one in Cozumel because its all drift diving, but I did make a point of being the one to lead us back to the channel exit on all our shore dives, and also had many opportunities to lead dives as part of my Divemaster course. This is a skill I’ll continue to build on in Thailand, where finding my way back to the boat is a must. I did notice in Cozumel though that a lot of this is starting to come naturally, in that I don’t have to think about it specifically anymore – for example I pay attention to shadows and depths and habitat in reference to my location without really being aware that I’m doing it.

4) Learn to take better pictures underwater

Huge fail here. I took my camera on all of 2 dives and my white balance was acting up. I took a few terrible pictures and then started my DM course so the camera stayed dry the rest of the trip. To be continued in Thailand!

5) Be better at buddy checks

I have a mixed review on this one. On some dives, especially shore dives where we had as much time as needed to get ready, we did well with this. On others, we didn’t. Its too easy to slack off on this, to trust that my own quick check of my gear is sufficient, and to trust that my buddy is doing his too. Its always such a rush to get into the water once the boat arrives at the dive site, and all too easy to skip the checks when you’re always with the same buddy – I think its the “we trust each other to check our own gear” trap. Regardless of what factors are contributing to my mediocre success with this goal, its something I’ll keep working on.

This isn’t the A+ report I was hoping to write for myself before we left for Cozumel, but I also didn’t expect to start the DM (Divemaster) program so I’m going to cut myself some slack.

Here are a few of Warren’s pictures (you can check out more at www.warrenmckay.wordpress.com) to cap off this post

I heart Cozumel

conch

I’m loving the warmer water temps of a fall visit!

so darn cute

These are the moments

It was an absolutely beautiful morning today here in Cozumel. The sun was hot, the sea was calm and we had an incredible dive on Columbia Deep. On the back side of the wall we got treated to my all time favorite sight – the sun rays playing across the sand flats, as far as the eye can see. It was nearly meditative for me, nothing but the sound of my own breathing, the bubbles running past my face. Weightless and hovering off the bottom, sand trailing between my fingers. I love the way the light dances, the way the sand fades away into the deep blue horizon, the way the sun beams cut lines through the sea above. There is so much that I love about being underwater, but this remains one of my very favorite things to see. I’m always immediately awestruck by the beauty and peacefulness of it, stunned by the the sense of total calm it brings me. Its my zen moment :) So thankful to be here in this amazing place, surrounded by great friends and others who share my love of the sea. These are the moments I’ll remember forever.

Self-Improvement Week…Scuba Style

The sure-to-be-epic trip to Thailand is still 4 months away and I have encountered some serious diving withdrawals lately. I’ve been plagued with dreams of dolphins and currents and gearing up. Its been driving me crazy!! I haven’t even seen the bottom of a pool let alone open water since our trip to the Caribbean last January. Last January! Basically…I’ve been going nuts. This is a problem. Problems need solutions. And I’ve got a great one in mind… back to the fabulous Blue Angel Resort in Cozumel Mexico for a quick 1 week fix! The sea is guaranteed to cure what ails me.

A few months ago this little gem started floating its way around Facebook and it hasn’t been far from my mind since.

Steal of a deal – extended until November

We committed to making this work just a few days ago and have it all booked now. Leaving in 4 days! You can read more about the Blue Angel Resort in several of my other posts (here and here). Its where it all started for me…as a diver and also with Warren. Ergo, it has a special place in my heart! The people are warm and friendly, the diving is fantastic and it always feels a bit like coming home.

What will be different this time around is that I’m not doing any training. In fact, this will be the very first time I’ve ever gone diving somewhere and not come home with at least a few new cert cards. I’ll be taking a more personal approach to my own learning and growth as a diver on this trip. There won’t be any PADI course requirements directing me, or instructors evaluating me. So instead I’ve spent some time thinking about what areas I want to improve, what I want to be more confident with, and what gaps in my skills I should tackle this upcoming week. I’ve chosen 5 things to work on:

1) Learn to use my safety sausage, with confidence.

It looks like this: I carry it around with me underwater and when I’m ready to ascend I take my reg out of my mouth, blow into the inflator and up it goes, signaling my position to any boats above and attached to me by a line and reel. Sounds easy right? Not so much. First of all, I don’t really like taking my reg out of my mouth because it tends to free flow on me (spits out air too quickly). Also I find I need a big breath of air to fill up the sausage (at least partly as the air I put in it will continue to expand on its way up to the surface) and when I take one I start to rise in the water, and then the sausage pulls me up as well. Controlling my buoyancy while doing this is a skill I have yet to master. I’ve launched it a few times, but I’ve never really gotten enough air into it that its full when it reaches the surface, and I’ve not yet felt comfortable doing it either. The other challenge is just managing to hold my reg, hold the sausage inflator, and hold the reel in a way that as soon as there’s air in there it can spin freely and not take me with it. Its a lot for just 2 hands! I am not at all looking forward to working on this skill, and I highly suspect Warren will take this post to heart and refuse to launch his own on our dives too. Sigh. Its just one of those things I’ve got to get the hang of though.

2) Gain more experience and be more comfortable on deep dives.

Even with an advanced and deep diver certification, I still find myself more anxious below about 70-80 feet than on other dives. I enjoy them less, I worry more, and I’m hoping this is one of those things that goes away with experience. I tend to get caught up in watching my air consumption, focused on getting from point A to B with enough air and no decompression time left to make a safe ascent instead of just maintaining an awareness of those things and enjoying the dive. There are no skills to practice here, its just all in my head. I’ll focus on keeping my breathing slow and steady – it always leads to calm. I’ll try not to check my gauges obsessively too.

3) Rely less on Warren to navigate.

I’m a lucky girl, my dive buddy is a Master Scuba Diver Instructor. I’m always in competent, experienced hands while underwater. This does sometimes lead to complacency on my part though. I pay less attention than I should to what direction we’re going, to noting landmarks and other navigational aides, because I know that Warren is already doing it and I trust him completely. I have no excuse for this, and I have my navigation specialty so I know I have the skills. I probably won’t make much progress with this goal in Cozumel since its all drift diving (no need to find your way back to the boat, it just follows you from the surface) and I’m so familiar with the shore dive now that finding my way around there is a piece of cake. But it is something I want to stay aware of and that is certainly a step in the right direction.

4) Practice underwater photography in a current.

Taking pictures in Cozumel is HARD! Its impossible to stay still with the current (and often surge too) pushing you around and very few of my subjects stop to pose for me either. This is practice makes perfect, but I also plan on hitting up Warren and Kari for some tips too! Those two take some great pictures! On the last trip I got pretty good at controlling my buoyancy while using my camera, and also recovered from the initial damage it did to my air consumption. This time I’d love to work on getting better quality shots.

5) Step up in the buddy check department.

Don’t get me wrong here, I always check my gear. But I’ve been a bit lax in checking my buddy’s gear, of going through the set BWRAF system (I’m actually embarrassed to admit this). BWRAF is PADI’s acronym for the buddy check, to be completed in full before each and every dive. B-BCD, W-weights, R-releases, A-air, F-final ok. I do this on myself all the time, but its been awhile since I’ve done it with my buddy. Some of this might be related to trusting my buddy…he’s an instructor after all, he knows what he’s doing. And I’m familiar with what equipment he’s using. Maybe its also being rushed when the time comes to gear up and roll off the boat so everyone stays together to descend. Could be I’m just being lazy. All of the above. Either way, its not good enough. I had the opportunity to act as shore support for some open water certifications in Jasper this summer and I spent a ton of time helping the students run through the checks, getting them into the habit of doing them, and of doing them thoroughly. Honestly, I felt like a hypocrite. I am determined to do better, to be better, and to dive safer. Its not that big of an inconvenience, and if I’m too rushed before a dive to run through it properly then that’s a bad way to start a dive anyways.

Stay tuned for the follow up post on how I made out. If all goes really well you’ll see some better underwater pictures too!

Adios Amigos

Destination Thailand

I’ve been reluctantly drying out from my last dive now for about three and a half months. And that’s just enough time for a dive junkie and her dive junkie boyfriend and their dive junkie friend to put together another dive trip! This time we’re off to…drum roll please… Thailand! The land of smiles, Buddhist temples, and spectacular diving. This trip came together quickly and quite easily thanks to our friend Alexandra Bassarab at Blue View Divers on the island of Koh Phi Phi Don, south of Phuket on the West side of the country. She was an all star in putting together a package with her local shop and booking us a boat (the whole boat!) for the live aboard portion of the trip. We never did give up on doing a live aboard and, just fyi, the Similan Islands where we’re headed are ranked by the National Geographic Society as being one of the top ten dive destinations in the entire world. WOW!

Warren and Alex will be tag-teaming the leadership of this trip and I think they make a really fantastic duo! Having someone in Thailand now who knows the place and the diving is such a huge advantage – there won’t be any disappointments or unexpected curve balls for us to contend with in regards to the dive shop, accommodations, or live aboard company because Alex has been living and working in Thailand for some time now and is busy personally checking out all those places for us. With a diver like her managing the Blue View shop, I have total confidence we’ll be taking our group to the right place!

So without further ado…here are the details!!

We’ll be running the trip through our local dive shop Ocean Sports here in Edmonton but don’t want to limit spots only to locals. So, if you happen to live elsewhere but are interested in coming…you can! All you need to do is call up Ocean Sports and pay your deposit. Right from the get go meeting new people and making new friends has always been a big part of what makes diving so awesome for me. You really do get to hang out with a diverse bunch of people, from all over the world, and a shared love of diving is all it takes to form those friendships. So, come on our trip and make some new dive friends!

Warren and Alex will also be offering PADI courses – they recommend Advanced Open Water so we can take full advantage of all the dive sites around the Phi Phi islands as well as Enriched Air as nitrox fills are awfully cheap in Thailand. Since she’s familiar with the local wildlife Alex would be a great person to take your Fish ID course with to learn all about the species found in the Andaman Sea and Indian Ocean. And if you’re interested in side mount diving, Warren is your guy!

I’m most excited about simply going so far away from home, going someplace so completely removed from the North American culture and scenery that I’m used to. The Caribbean and Hawaii are the only times I’ve stepped off of my own continent so flying to the other side of the world (and crossing the international date line while I’m at it, which is on my bucket list by the way) is completely thrilling to me. Its about time I get out and really see what else is out there! I’ve been a fairly sheltered traveler so far – I have no doubt that Thailand is going to be an enormous cultural and culinary shock to my senses. Perfect! Also awesome? Thailand is basically as far from my home in Edmonton as it is possible to go. Any further around and we’d be on our way home. Warren is convinced I’ll have less trouble adjusting to the time change too, because I’m so used to flipping between working days and nights as it is. I have my doubts about that – Thailand is 13 hours ahead…its already tomorrow over there. The jet lag will probably show us both who is boss!

In the meantime, here are some pictures of the places we’ll be visiting and the amazing things we’re hoping to see! If you’ve been to Thailand, diving or otherwise, I’d love to hear about your favorite places and any recommendations for “can’t miss” activities, restaurants, or places to see! Post away in the comments section!

The “wai” is a sign of greeting in Thailand

Clown triggerfish!

Stunning Koh Phi Phi

Our home for 4 days and 4 nights in the Similan Islands

Here’s a map of the Similan Islands…which, by the way, are considered some of the best diving in the world

Another view of the Similan Islands

Nemos! Very excited to see these guys.

Manta Rays…yes please!

Longtail dive boats in Koh Phi Phi – this’ll be a new fun way to reach a dive site!

Black tip reef sharks…Alex tells us there are so many of these around that they don’t really get exciting over sightings anymore. How wild is that?!

So looking forward to exploring some of Thailand’s above water sights. Like this beautiful temple

Whalesharks are often spotted in Thailand. My fingers couldn’t be more crossed

Welcome to Blue View Divers!