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Boat Diving from Phuket We organised three days of boat diving for our time in Phuket, we did this via the All 4 Diving centre which was just a few minutes' walk from our hotel. Every morning a bus would pick us up from the hotel at about 7-8am and drive us to the harbour at the south of the island, we would then get on a boat for our journey to the dive sites. The underwater photos are from the first day of diving where our instructor took his underwater camera and charged us a modest fee to get a copy of the photos. Unfortunately no such camera on the following days :( Racha Yai Island The first day of diving was aimed at getting us back in the water to complete our Padi Advanced Open Water certification. As we hadn't done any diving in nearly 6 months we thought it would be best to go out with a dedicated instructor for just the two of us. We completed the peak performance buoyancy and underwater navigation modules on the two dives and achieved our Advanced certification. The underwater navigation didn't go so well because of a moderate current but the instructor passed us anyway... he obviously realised that the chance of a tip would be reduced to zero if we failed : - ) As we were busy doing lots of training exercises we didn't get much chance to have a good look around but we did see a large octopus which tried to hide under a rock. Phi Phi Island The second day of diving took us on a speed boat out to Phi Phi Island for a couple of dives and a visit to a monkey island. For these dives we just joined a guided tour and paid about half that we did for the certification dives. On the first dive we saw a large turtle early on which was munching on some coral, it wasn't very afraid of us and just slowly approached our guide before swimming off. On the second dive we saw a couple of Black tip reef sharks but only in the distance; they would swim off very quickly if they saw us. At some point on this days diving I lost my watch, and it could possibly be at the bottom of the sea with the alarm going off every morning for the next few years. On the trip to the monkey Island we were given some bananas to feed the monkeys. These little monkeys would take the bananas from you, peel them and then eat it. Unfortunately for the monkeys they seem very dependent on the food given to them by tour groups. There were about 4 boats at the site when we arrived and everyone was feeding the monkeys, apparently this happens every day and I expect the monkeys are now entirely dependent on tour groups feeding them. King Cruiser Wreck, Shark Point & Koh Dok Mai Island The first dive was at the King Cruiser Wreck which goes from around 15m to 30m, top to bottom. The wreck was not that impressive as the undercurrent had pulled up the sea floor and ruined visibility. The next dive was at Shark point and upon our water entry there was a large nursing shark sleeping on the sea floor. I got about one foot from the shark and it didn't seem at all concerned. Later in the dive we saw another 4 or 5 nursing sharks, unfortunately no more turtles. By the third dive that day I was feeling pretty tired; this dive was against a large sea wall and amongst many things we saw some tiny sea horses. Three dives in a day and the journey back and forward to Phuket in a boat made things a bit too hectic with only a small amount of time for lunch. Two boat dives a day would have been a much better option. |