Monday, February 23, 2015

Diving at Pi Pi Islands

 On some dives it is hard to believe you are underwater. On Saturday we had such a day when the visability was outstandingly clear...reallyt amazing. Here we are at about 20mtrs. Crystal clear and 28 degrees C. what a delight to be diving.
 Pi Pi is well known for its coral formations. Although there was a good deal of damage in the Tsunami there are still plenty of nice formations to admire.
 For the past 4 days, Manuela has been my Dive Buddy. Manuela has just completed her PADI Advanced Open Water and thus progressed to the 30mtr mximum depth. With the Red Sea within easy reach for  us European Divers, it is necessary to hold an Advanced Certificate at least as many of the dives there are 25 mtrs+. Most of the dives off Phuket are pretty shallow so an Open Water Certificate allows access to most of the dives.
 We saw lots of barracuda and trevelly on these dives...as well as so many species that there would be too many to list.
Impressive soft corals all over the dive sights shelter a whole range of species.
 Look how happy my Dive Buddy is.....are we really 20 metres down??
 There's such a jumble of life and different things to look at that in such amazing visability it's hard to know where to look.
 Nice to see a blue spotted stingray in such clarity. We see loads in Kata  but conditions are often very murky these days...a direct result of the endless pollution pouring into the Andman Sea from the many hotels and buildings.
 But not here around Pi Pi Islands...it's all pristine with lots of interesting fish to see.
 Ah...the early days of Advanced Open Water when any opportunity to practice a bit of Peak Performance Buoyancy Control is to be taken!!
 Later in the day we were diving in stacks of tide and terrible visability...which required very close inspection of the dive site. we were rewarded with little creatures wsuch as these shrimps....
 ...and several colourful seahorses....always a wonderful discovery amongst the densely packed coral.
 The small creatures above were at Koh Doc Mai...which is a Karst formation. This is what it looks like above sea level.







And here we are on our way back to Chalong. Another geat day at Phuket.

Friday, February 13, 2015

Underwater Manoeuvres

Dinesh's first ever sea dive.....and it was Emotional

First we piroutte to the right with our leg out tight

Then we spin to the floor....we all want more

Please, Great Vishnu, let me be like my hair and stay upright!

Buggar...now I'm doing what my thumbs are telling me

And, yep, we're back on the seabed again in our very own personal sandstorm

Arrggghhh....how the F*ck am I gonna do this???

And, yes, we have the beginnings of a first flight

We've cracked it!! Look at me, Mama.....I can fly!

And even in just 3 metres, Kata obliges with cuttlefish

and above us...stacks of fish to see

and corals....in still only 4 metres
And even a rare critter like this Headshield Slug! Thank you, Kata

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Phuket Fishing Park

Melvyn Brown from Gloucester and Dinesh Chouchan from London
Dorset's Keith Dowden and Richard Spracklen
Keith Dowden with the day's first fish....a fine catfish
Dinesh's first ever freshwater fish (stickleback excluded)
Keith with an even bigger catfish
...Keith again with a superb Siamese carp
And Richard with another carp.....it was a busy day!
First time we have caught a grass carp from this lake
A manic fighting paku for Keith
Melvyn with a good catfish
Oh Dear...the next catfish trashed Melvyn's rod
And Keith with the biggest catfish of the day which we estimated at 35lb

What a great day at Phuket Fishing Park for us today. Four guests including Dinesh who had never fished before, caught a selection of catfish, carp and paku. The most recent trips have featured paku but today we caught just the one with the catfish being the main species. We are usually fortunate at this lake with some terrific fishing from these very hard fighting species.

A great day

And now it's nearly time for our current guests to return to UK. We have one more day of diving tomorrow and this will be another 'first' for Dinesh who MAY be experiencing his first ever sea dive....all will be revealed in the next Blog.