Kata Diving

Our diving on Kata Reef yesterday allowed us to discover a few more Nudibranchs. For those hardened anglers reading this, I can feel your bafflement at such dinky little critters being of any interest....but, they are hard to find and quite rare. From a diver's point of view, it requires good underwater buoyancy control in order to be able to get a good look at these creatures...


....and to get nice, clear photographs the diver needs to be in complete control of his movements....so, well done to Jeff who is progressing very nicely and is now starting to take good photographs...as seen here. This is Jeff's last dive until next December...he and Om are off 'up country' after Xmas.

Coral bleaching is a problem, particularly in shallow waters. The reason given for 'bleaching' is the rise in water temperatures. Water temperatures in Phuket/Andaman Sea have been in excess of 30 degrees in the last few years...bleaching occurs (so I am told) at 33 degrees. (Reminder...this is SEA temp!!! It's pretty warm diving over here!). This coral has a hint of colour left on it...so you can imagine what the whole area would look like if the corals were still coloured.

Here's another little bit of coral. Kata is not the best place for coral but it's a great reef to practice dive skills and also to see a LOT of fish life...there's stacks of fish about. We were going to sea today on a longtail boat for a bit of offshore diving...but Jeff's gone and got injured. The Bristol Fairy had to be carried out of the Tamarin Bar last night....and, for a change, he was not drunk....the fool has gone and damaged his cartilage. Thought we were off to hospital last night!!

Nice little shot of a few fish hovering over a clump of rock near the surface.