The diving of the first day was awesome. Let's see if our next days will be awesome as well. We started with a morning dive in location called North point.
Priceless
Not much to see on the first dive of the day. In between first and second dive we had some free time to explore the main island with a significant rock on top of the hill.
A break from the moving boat
Time to enjoy!
On diving spot called Christmas point we witnessed couple of White Tip Reef Sharks cruising around. Since sharks are considered as shy animals (surprisingly), it is hard to spot them. Hence there is a 2 meters long shark one on the following video.
Before the last dive of the day Joe warned us of possibility to witness so called Green Monster. We were ready to jump into the water therefore there was no time to actually clarify what Green Monster is. We were diving and suddenly all fish started to rapidly swim towards rocks and corals to hide. We looked in the deep blue and suddenly green wave of cold and murky water reached us. We grabbed each other for hands and try to find safe spot somewhere. Most of the times we were able to find nice spot to wait for Green Monster to pass by. Due to strong currents in that area, Green Monsters are quite common. Our diving guides knew what to do in such situations but it was freezing cold!! Nevertheless experience was priceless and we now know what Green Monster is.
Boris with a puffer fish in the background
Giant Moray Eel
Breathing real air with the wet equipment on
Stars are not only on the sky!
It was time to call it a day. We locked ourselves in the cabin and take a good night rest to recover our strengths for upcoming two days of diving.
Next morning we heard: "It is a beautiful morning in Similan Islands! Rise and shine!" from Joe which was the sign to wake up, prepare our equipment and get ready to jump into the crystal clear water.
Beautiful morning dive
Octopus
Same octopus...
We finished the first dive of the day in the early morning. We had enough time to do another dive on the same location, Tachai pinnacle at Koh Tachai. We jumped into the water and quickly reached out final depth of the dive. We swam around the corals and suddenly it got darker under the water. We looked up and became breathless. Above us was swimming 5 meter wide Manta Ray. This magnificent animal danced around us for couple of minutes. The feeling was outstanding.
The star of the day: Manta Ray
Manta Ray still dancing around us as well as a group of barracudas - Priceless!
Lost in yellowness
Sea horse
Among the animals on the pictures we also saw some tunas, mantis shrimp and bay box fish.
Our captain turned the boat around and we headed back towards mainland. The last day of liveaboard we stopped at Hin Laung, where we spotted a stone fish. Before the last dive location was well known Koh Bon, West Ridge where 2 meters wide Eagle Ray came to say hello.
The last location was Boonsung Wreck near to Khao Lak mainland where we saw a lot of baby fish, all sorts.
Bat fish
Box fish
Giant Squid
One of the most dangerous animals in the world, Stone Fish
Baby Moray Eel
We concluded our diving with awesome feelings and crazy good experiences. Some of the highlights: Manta Ray, White Tip Reef Sharks, Hawksbill Turtle, Green Monster.
All and all well balanced trip. More to come. Stay tuned.
The main reason why we decided to come back to Thailand, was to do awesome scuba diving in national park Similan Islands. Therefore, we headed to a well known location - Khao Lak.
We decided to go on 4 days liveaboard. Long story short: liveaboard means living on the boat - in our case for 4 days and 4 nights. It was one of rare rainy nights, when we were picked up from dive center. And so our 4 days of paradise begun.
After registering at Khao Lak Scuba Adventures we were all excited and ready to go. Boarding on the a boat named Manta Queen 3 was successful. We set sails and started our overnight ride towards the national park. On the 35 meters long boat there were 31 divers, 10 dive crew, 6 boat staff and 2 cooks. Our air-cond room with private bathroom looked like:
On the next morning at 6:00 a.m. the head of the diving crew Joe and his crew started a wake-up call with: "It is a beautiful morning in Similan Islands! Rise and shine!". The view from the boat was just stunning.
While we were drinking our first morning coffee, Joe already had dive plan ready for first dive site called Anita's Reef. We got our equipment ready...
... and started with diving! Finally!
It did not last long when we became amazed about the underwater life in Similan Islands.
Giant Triggerfish
Blue-spotted stingray
Breakfast was served after we came out of the water. And while we were eating, our captain headed off towards our next locations. West of Eden and Elephant Head Rock were next two dive sites. Again we were not disappointed.
Giant Morey
Elephant Head Rock
West of Eden
Hawksbill Turtle
After third dive we waited for sun to go down. The next in row was a night dive.
During the night dive different wildlife can be spotted. We witnessed a lot of small big-eyed fish and different types of crabs. The most admirable animal was lobster. It was time to call a day and jump into pajamas.
Bubbly and nitrogen-ful greetings from Similan Island
Boris & Jerneja
We loved our new daily routine: waking up early, eating breakfast, waiting for Nabeel to pick us up, taking us to the best Arabic coffee and falafel place in town and then diving.
No matter how early we came to the center, Graham was always there, waiting dressed in his wet suit.
The first dive after the AOWD we did in the Cable Valley. Again, we prepared our equipment and put it in the truck. By now the truck got his own name - The Divemobil. It was quite an adventure driving around with the Divemobil. One day, the transmission didn´t work, the next day the battery was low, then it didn´t start at all and we had to push it...
The dive in the Cable Valley was also a deep dive. We reached the depth of 32 m that day and there we saw a 1,25 m long beautiful napoleon fish just swimming around.
Next dive was in the Japanese garden, which was full of sea life. It was a shallow dive - up to 8 m. We saw sea worm, red frog fish, blow fish, porcupine fish, shrimp, lion fish and buffer fish.
As we came out of the water, the driver was already waiting for us. There he took a picture of us, which can sum up our vacation.
On the last day of our diving we went to Tarmac 5. There was another wreck - barch, where we saw a four color chromodoris. Our maximum depth that we reached on this dive was 27 m.
The last dive we did in King Abdullah Reef. We saw a lot of Red Sea banner, which is very typical for this area. We also saw gray moray and spotted eagle ray.
After our last dive it was time to say goodbye to Graham. We had a lot of fun with him and we know, we always say this, but he was the best instructor we ever had.
As we arrived back to the visitor´s center, we were approached by an Italian couple. They asked us, where we were heading and if we were willing to share a taxi with them to lower our costs. We gladly accepted the offer, because none of us wanted to deal with those people anymore.
The drive towards Aqaba was short. We made it even shorter by exchanging each-other´s travelling experiences. Soon we saw the sea and we knew we finally arrived - back to the civilization.
First we found the hotel and took a long shower. Now it was time to find a diving club. We began by visiting the one´s around our hotel, but we weren´t happy with what we found. Either the instructors didn´t speak English well enough, or the diving was too expensive. We decided to go back to the hotel and ask the clerk at the reception. He recommended a friend and we decided to give him a chance. He came to our hotel, where we talked about what we wanted. We were planning to stay in Aqaba for 8 days, so we had enough time for Jerneja to do her Advance Open Water Diver´s license and for some additional recreational dives. He has an English diving instructor and he gave us a good price, so we decided to dive with Jordan diving center.
The very next day Nabeel (the manager of the diving club) picked us up at 9 o´clock at our hotel and took us to the diving center, which is located about 5 km to the south of the city. There we met our diving instructor, 54 year old Graham Skelly and some other local guys, who help around the center.
Before we dived in to the water, we talked to Graham, what we wanted. AOWD class demands 5 dives and we agreed upon the following: Peak Performance Buoyancy, Wreck Dive, Deep Dive, Navigation and Night Dive. Boris joined all these dives as Jerneja´s buddy. Additionally to AOWD dives we took 5 more recreational dives, also with Graham as our instructor.
We got our equipment ready and put it in to the truck and Graham drove us to the Rainbow reef, where we had our first dive after a very long time. The purpose of Peak Performance Buoyancy dive was to refresh our knowledge.
After lunch we went to the Cedar´s pride. This is a 75 m long ship wreck, which was put in to the water by King Abdullah II, so he could do a wreck dive. 20 years later, the wreck became a home for a lot of sea animals and is as rich with sea life as any other reef.
The next morning, Nabeel picked us up again, took us to the best falafel place in Aqaba, where we bought our lunch and got us some real Arabic coffee. He was really spoiling us.
As we arrived to the diving center, Graham was already there, waiting for us. After we prepared the equipment, he took us to the Eel garden, where we did the Deep Dive. We went 30 m under the sea level. To estimate diver´s abilities and influence on the diver at such dept, Jerneja had to solve two exercises - one in the center and one at 30 m depth. Result: in the center she needed 1 second to find the correct result and under the water it took her 6 seconds.
After lunch we went to another diving place. We were particularly excited about this one, because we went to the Seven sisters and underwater tank. Jerneja passed her Navigation Dive there. With compass in her hand, she had to find the tank and shape a square while swimming.
On a third day, we did the last dive to complete AOWD. It was the Night Dive. But we wanted to do a recreational dive before the night, so Graham took us to the Gorgonian, where we saw stone fish, lion fish, blow fish, gray moray and huge see fan.
We were waiting in the diving center for night to fall. They have a pool, which was a lot of fun.
As the night fell, Graham took the truck and went to pick up a military navy clerk. According to Jordan regulations, there has to be a military navy clerk present during a night dive, because of vicinity of Syrian boarder. As they came back, we went back to diving sight, we already knew - Seven Sisters and the Tank. It is always a good idea to do a night dive at the place you know. It was pitch black, so we had torches. The military clerk stayed at the beach as we dived in to the water. It was most definitely the most memorable dive, we ever did. The sea looks completely different at night. Other animals come out during the night and the visibility is a lot worse. We saw red octopus, sleeping stingray, squid, shrimp and star fish.
