Days 13-16 Liveaboard Trip

I have had the most amazing 4 days of my life! As I mentioned in the previous blog, I had 13 dives on a liveaboard boat over the 4 days. The location of the dives are the Surin Islands and Similan Islands, and they sure lived up to their expectations! I saw the major things everyone wants to see -- sharks, dolphins, rays and turtles in addition to thousands and thousands of colorful fish. In addition, I met the most amazing people -- I hope I keep in touch with many of them!

The Andaman is a liveaboard boat designed to hold up to 20 divers. There are bunks inside for sleeping, and a full staff who takes care of us during our trip -- cooks, diving helpers, and captain in addition to the 5 dive masters. I first got to the dive shop, which might as well be a garage open to the street with some tables and some display cases with dive equipment, t-shirts, etc. I got signed up by Roger (the instructor of our boat) and hung out until other people from our group filtered in. With 3 liveaboard boats, it was hard to figure out who was going on which boat. When the time came, we piled into two minivans and drove for 1.5 hours to the pier where our boat was waiting. Before we left, I met my dive buddy -- Lai (pronounced like "lie"), a British girl with Chinese parents. It turned out that we were the perfect buddy team; we have about the same number of dives, and we are both Asian looking from English speaking countries. Of course, we had lots of people on the boat confused as to which one was which. Fun!

The neatest thing was that I was the only person from the U.S. There was a Canadian guy from Vancouver, some Brits, Welsh, Swiss, Norwegians, French, Dutch, Austrian, Slovakian, Kiwi, Aussie and a German. Very international -- just my style. Interestingly enough, the most spoken language on the boat was French, but 3 of the dive masters were German-speaking so there was alot of German being spoken on the boat.

We didn't dive on the first night. We got on the boat, got ourselves a bunk and headed upstairs for our first general briefing about diving and the dive sites were were going to see. After the briefing, we went to bed knowing that we were going to get a 6:30am wakeup call for our first morning dive. I was so excited that I woke up even before the wakeup call and got some great sunrise photos while chatting with my divemaster, Rebekka.

I can't even remember each and every dive, but Richlieu Rock off of the Surin Islands was the best dive of my life. We dove that site twice, for our morning and lunchtime dives. There were SO MANY fish there that in some places, you couldn't even see the rocks/coral underneath. I said that it must have been "rush hour" for the fish. Of course, there were 6 other boats full of divers, but it was still amazing, and ranks as my best dive of my life (29 dives so I have many more to go!).

The thing that most people look forward to are the big stuff -- sharks, dolphins, turtles, rays. I actually like the small stuff just as much. I get excited every time I see a Nemo (western clown fish) and they are still my favorites. The big deal shark in these waters is the Whale Shark, which I could have seen in Honduras but wasn't lucky enough to see. My dive master said she saw a smallish one far away, but I got distracted by a Cobia (which kind of looks like a shark) so I didn't see it. We did see white-tipped reef sharks and a sleeping leopard shark. Still, very exciting. I didn't see any dolphins in the water (they don't like the noises divers make with all of our bubbles) but we did see them from our boat. In fact, some of my friends got extensive video of the dolphins jumping and racing with the boat, darting on both sides. I was too busy watching to film it. The other huge thing in the area are the Manta Rays -- they look like they are about 10 ft wide and float through the water like a Stealth fighter. We were lucky enough to see two of them in the same dive (I didn't even know that they were two different ones) and it was really amazing to watch them move through the water. I guess Mantas are very curious about divers and will sometimes come and "play" -- swim above the divers so that our bubbles tickle their bellies and circle above us. But don't worry, despite their size, they only eat plankton. I did have a close encounter with a deadly sea animal. The banded sea snake looks very cool while moving through the water, and it was coming right in my direction. As it passed by, I floated on my back and watched it swim less than 4 inches from my face right above me. Afterwards, people told me that the sea snake is 10 times more poisonous than a cobra, but their tiny jaws are too small to bite us over our wet suits. Of course, he could have given me a little nibble on my face or ears! I had no idea it was poisonous, which was a good thing because I may have panicked a bit if I had known. I was getting a bit bummed that we hadn't seen turtles yet when we saw 2 in one dive. They were about 15 feet away from each other, chewing on coral, when one came over toward the other from behind. The one that got snuck up on seemed to get mad and keep chasing the other one, snapping at its head. I later found out that they were mating. I am thinking that the one doing the snapping was the female, then!

So enough about the diving, as not all of you are interested in that stuff. The color of the water is really amazing, every shade of aqua blue and teal that you can imagine. We did get to visit some sandy beaches, and they were as white as snow and the finest grains of sand. It's kind of scary how you get used to such beautiful surroundings as you look out the boat and think, oh it's just another day of diving...

I am sitting in the Internet Cafe with the two Norwegian boys -- Jens and Lars. They just finished their year of military service and are traveling around before starting university. They are the most gorgeous guys I have seen on this trip. Think Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise or A River Runs Through It. Don't worry, I took pictures. It turns out that they gravitated toward me because my English is the easiest for them to understand, with all the American TV shows they get in Norway. The Brits, Aussie and Kiwi are harder for them to understand, and of course, other Europeans who speak English as a second language are more difficult. And I thought they liked me... No, we had a good time. Another guy I really liked is a Swiss guy who I later found out likes boys. He's a repeat customer at Sea Dragon Dive Center and has done this trip many times before, and knows some of the dive masters and crew. He has spent alot of time in Thailand and understands the culture pretty well.

Okay, I just wanted to let you know that I am back safe and sound, with no decompression sickness, injuries or illness. Those left from our boat are going to go out for dinner then a pub crawl tonight, and I'm looking forward to it!!! Lots of pictures tonight.

love,
asami