Finished Liveaboard #2

Hello Again! I’m back from the second liveaboard trip, and again it was a blast! This one was a little different than the first. Of the 9 dives we did 6 were different than the first trip out, and since I was finished all my training I was able to see even more of the Similans. We did another night dive and it was even better than the first! We followed a huge octopus around that would change colors when it touched different rocks to camouflage itself, and saw a bright red coral crab hiding in the coral. While we were out on the trip there was a Thai celebration called Loy Krathong. They make a small raft made of flowers and burn incents that they push out to the sea to ask forgiveness for the water they have spilled and unintentional pollution of the sea. The crew had prepared a bunch of these rafts for us to push out so that we could take part in the celebration with them!

The last dive of the trip was a wreck dive called the Boonsung wreck. It was very different than all the other dives, the visibility was only about 10 meters and there were fish everywhere! I saw dozens of poisonous lionfish, giant pufferfish and a few honeycomb moray eels. It was really cool to navigate around the wreck making sure you didn’t get caught on anything or bump into one of the lionfish hovering around. It was a bit more challenging and exciting compared to doing a reef dive where you just relax and cruise along.

After seven days I already have 18 dives under my belt and an advanced open water cert! So now I can do wreck dives, night dives and deep dives. I can’t wait to get a chance to go diving in different parts of the world. I also got some great underwater pictures from the DMT’s on the first trip so you can see some of what we’ve been looking at down there. Just check the photo album…

Since I’ve been back on land I’ve been working out where to go next. There are still so many more things I’d like to see and do, but it’s hard to fit it all into two weeks. My plan has changed about 5 times in the past 16hrs, but I think I’ve got it worked out. I wanted to go south to Krabi and check out more islands, but that’s all I’ve really seen of Thailand so far… not that that’s a bad thing! But I’m fairly sure there is more to Thailand than jaw dropping beaches and islands. So instead I was going to go to the northern tip of Thailand and see the mountains, but this wouldn’t leave me much time to get to Cambodia. I’ve come to a compromise…go to the middle! I’m off to Bangkok since it’s near the gulf coast and a good base to do trips up north and east to Cambodia.

Here is a quick story for everyone – last night I was sitting in front of the wicked shop when this giant cicada bug started buzzing around and flew into the shop. No problem, 4 guys should be able to take this bird sized bug out. I admit I remained safely outside the shop (you know, to make sure no one else came in…) So Paul went to go whack it with a broom and this bug let out a scream you would only hear in horror movies!! After a few more swipes with the broom it started screeching and buzzing Paul’s head. That’s when everyone bailed out of the shop, this thing sounded pissed right off! We need a bigger broom… (Jaws… get it?) Eventually it flew out the back door and everyone was back to business. I managed to get enough courage to get close enough and take a picture of the bug, but if it had moved an inch I would have let out a man scream.

Until next time! Take care everyone,

Nate.

Oh, and just as a side note, its +32 today and I'm sitting by the pool with the DMT guys as I write this up... incase you were wondering... :)