The ear plugs did well to extinguish some of the loud humming of the generators.
At 07:39 we made our first dive at Christmas Point. Unfortunately, the ear plugs had a less desirable effect at that point and I had a resulting equalising problem on descent. It took me 10 minutes to reach 20 metres and I used 60 bar in doing so! Sadly, the dive wasn't much good either and we spent a long time struggling against the extremely strong current. We were by now at nearly 30 metres so what with the depth and the current, Ian's diving assailants, our dive was short as Ian ran low on air. We only saw some trevally, fusiliers, a moray eel and a moorish idol. It was a plain dive and so I was pleased it was cut short.
After breakfast we dived the Atlantis Wreck at Beacon Reef. The Atlantis Wreck was a liveaboard dive vessel that was accidentally sunk last August, so there wasn't much growth on it yet although a few blue ringed angelfish had made it their home. Elsewhere on Beacon Reef I saw nudibranchs, bird wrasse, parrotfish, a free swimming moray eel, false clownfish, true anemone fish, peacock rockcod, scorpionfish, moorish idol, humphead bannerfish, collare butterflyfish and a black spotted toadfish. My air consumption was very good and the dive was very beautiful.
After lunch we dived at Breakfast Bend and saw a moray eel, powder blue surgeonfish, peacock rockcod, a blue spotted ray, garden eels, a painted flutemouth, millions of glassfish, bird wrasse, racoon butterflyfish, meyers butterflyfish, regal angelfish, false clownfish, a shrimp goby, boxfish, pale lipped surgeonfish, redtooth triggerfish, clown triggerfish, a maori wrasse, pufferfish and checkered seaperch. The currents were so strong the dive reminded me of Ellaidhoo House Reef in the Maldives!
Having moored for the night again amongst the many other dive vessels in Donald Duck Bay, we were transferred to the beach by the tender of yesterdays dive vessel and spent a couple of hours on the beach. There were only seven of us left on the liveaboard now that the majority were returning to the mainland and all of us went to the beach. As we approached the shoreline it was evident of the beauty of this small island in the Similans in the Andaman Sea. The water was beautifully clear and the sand so white! As soon as I allowed my feet to sink into the velvety soft sand I knew I had found something closely resembling the beautiful sand in Jambiani in Zanzibar.
We dumped our gear on the beach and doused ourselves in suncream. Then Ian, Cornelia, Marcus, Sasson and I went off to find a way to climb the huge boulders that we had seen people sitting by from the dive vessel. We walked into the scrub of the island and immediately discovered a permanent camp, walked round in a circle, were offered oreo cookies by some local ladies and emerged again on the beach where we started. A second attempt, by actually ascending behind a couple of large boulders at the end of the beach, found us a successful route. Marcus led the way and we clambered up the huge boulders and steep tree route ascent, making use of the rope aids where present. When we reached the top, balancing rather precariously, we rounded the final corner where half a dozen people were crouched in the shade and stretched out in front of us was an absolutely amazing vista. The beach and shallow waters looked even more stunning from such a high vantage. It was absolutely breathtaking, so beautiful!
Having taken lots of photographs of each other and the views, we climbed back down to sea level where we dispersed and Ian dipped in the ocean, burning in the hot afternoon sun. My camera and I took in some lovely views and compositions. When it was time to return to the dive vessel, Marcus, Cornelia and Sasson swam back to the boat leaving Ian and I to gather and return all of their gear.
We made our second night dive in the Similans at another site in Donald Duck Bay. It was a fairly good dive. I saw a huge school of squid that no one else seemed to be aware of in my group, a crayfish, shrimps, a white moray eel, lots of hermit crabs, two of which were quite big sitting on the sandy bottom and two tiny ones, parrotfish sleeping, a large crab, powder blue surgeonfish, pink anemone fish, anthias, christmas tree worms, a rough flutemouth, lionfish, bigeyes, emperor angelfish, peacock rockcod and goatfish. At the end of the dive a small white worm became fascinated by my torchlight and swam like a snake towards it. It was only 6 centimetres long and when I extinguished my torch it kept on swimming towards me! I was unable to identify it back on the vessel. My buddy, now permanently armed with his underwater camera, was next to useless on this dive. I fully appreciate the effects of a photographer on their buddy 'though I don't think I was that bad when I hired the camera on our Cairns liveaboard dives! [Editors Note: with hindsight, I'm sure I was. Photography is a solitary sport. When you peer through your viewfinder everything around you disappears and you become obsessed with your subject as you concentrate on your shot].
After dinner we got quite drunk on the beer. We were listening to Coldplay and relaxing on the deck of the South Siam III with a very gently breeze. Most people had gone to bed. The Belgian guys had offered their Cognac which had been accepted. The divemasters, Rudy and Alistair, had joined us socially and Ian, Sasson and I stayed up until gone 01:00. Alistair had returned to the other dive vessel in the tender boat and Rudy had fallen asleep lying down on the seats on deck.
It didn't take me long to fall asleep once I had inserted my ear plugs.
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.