One if by Land, and Two if by Sea … In the Andaman Sea

1/30/2009 –
We arrived at the Black Manta on 1/18 not knowing what to expect from a live aboard dive experience. For non divers out there, a live aboard is a large ship with 5 levels. The First two levels are for cabins, one level is the galley with entertainment center and dining room, the top level is the sundeck and the mid level is the dive area.

On a live aboard, the sole purpose is to dive. All of your needs are taken care of so you can just dive. There are as many crew people as there are divers. Our dive boat included our very own masseuse to be shared among 15 of us.

Our day looked like this: The bell would ring at 7AM. It was Time to wake up and meet at the galley. Here, our dive master Chris, would explain the course of the first dive of the day. We would have a light snack, and off we would tumble, into the ocean by 7:45. We would come up an hour later to a magnificent breakfast spread which changed daily, starting out very Thai and becoming more westernized as the week continued as did all the meals. We would have our breakfast and get ready for dive number two which would occur at 10:30. When we came up from dive number two, we would relax with a scrumptious lunch and a little nap. Dive number three would occur at 3:00. Once again, we would do our dive, come up for a light snack and prepare for our twilight/night dive. After this, dinner would be served. We would share stories and head on to bed as early as 9:30. Diving can be exhausting but so exhilarating!

We dove as far down as 90 feet at certain places. We were in the Similan Islands, a very special island chain in the Andaman Sea of Thailand. We saw countless fish species, some of which are only found in this particular area. We were also brought to amazing white sand beaches that seemed untouched by human hands.

The experience was incredibly relaxing until the final day, when Michelle’s stomach started acting up. We think she might have gotten a bit sloppy with her shower and sipped on some unpottable water by mistake. It was a miserable 24 hours for her….being on a boat and being sick to her stomach but she is a trooper and watched with envy as the others came up from their dives with fantastic stories of Manta Ray spottings, watching a Leopard Shark sleep, being in the center of a school of thousands of barracudas, and frolicking with an octopus who didn’t want to be frolicked with.

The people we dove with were fabulous. We enjoyed spending time with Hector from Singapore, Malcolm from England, On, our other dive master and fantastic photographer, Sariff , a resident from Seattle, and Belinda, an Aussie living in Singapore. They made our trip so interesting and fun. There was another group of people diving with us as well. We called them the coral crushers. They were certainly nice enough people, but it seemed like they never learned dive etiquette. There were 6 of them from Hong Kong. They were experienced divers but if there was anything special to see, they would run over what ever they could to be first to see it and be sure to get a good photo of it. They didn’t seem to care if they smashed into other divers or coral. Things really got out of hand when one of the other divers got one of the coral crushers banging the back of a turtle with a metal rod. We were appalled. So was our dive master, Chris.

The Similan Islands are a marine sanctuary and touching fish or coral is NOT allowed. Chris called the park staff on board to our ship to make sure this behavior did not continue.
All in all, the entire trip was amazing, and we ended it with mixed emotions when it was over, sad to be done but happy to be on land. This time, we end up in the fabulous town of Khaolak.
We spent five days in Khaolak. We revisited nightly sunsets, explored secret beaches and just relaxed by the pool and ocean.

We did spend one day diving a wreck that Michelle missed due to her bug on the dive boat. What we are learning on this trip is that we enjoy just hanging and maybe not doing so much. Khaolak allowed that. Everything was in walking distance.

We were fortunate in finding some fabulous restaurants and I mean FABULOUS! 5 star dinners in a down home atmosphere. YUM! The food in Thailand has been getting a bit limiting for us so finding great restaurants made us very happy.

Khaolak our last stop in Thailand. To think, 3 months ago we knew nothing about this part of the world. Now we are in love with it and wondering when we can come back. We hope our stories have given you a peak into this beautiful culture of people, land and sea.

With fondness, we bid farewell to the land of smiles and head off to Bali Indonesia.