Day Fourty-Nine

We woke up early to prepare for our first day of diving today! After eating breakfast at the Best Western Karon Beach, (our hotel without power), an Australian man named Rudy accompanied by our German divemaster Waldi picked us up to take us to the dive shop. At the dive shop we met our dive agency director Jamie, who to our disappointment was a man. We met up with our fourth wheel, Jeff Davidson. Once we were all together Jamie geared us up with dive equipment and then Rudy took our entire crew to the Karon Beach marina.

At the marina we were J-Lynn and I were greeted by our personal dive instructor Neil. Neil was an English born Australian who had been living in Thailand for the past five or six years diving and giving lessons. From this point on the trip was complete luxury. Our group had the entire Sai Mai diving yacht to ourselves. We had our own personal boat crew which consisted of a captain, chef, and two deckhands to take care of our every need.

We left the marina around ten o'clock. From Karon beach we went to our first dive site Racha Yai- Bay 2 where Neil instructed Jeff Lynn and I for our first dive skills lesson. Sam and Davidson went along with Waldi to test the quality of their new underwater digital cameras.

{ Before I go on I need to tell you how awesome our deckhands were. Before each dive our deckhands would make sure all of our equipment was functioning properly, they would fill our tanks, help secure our vests, and even get down on their knees to slip our flippers on for us. SWEET!}

Anyways, after our first dive the deckhands helped us out of our gear and then we went upstairs for lunch which was awesome. Around four o'clock we jumped in for our second dive of the day at the same dive site. This time J-Lynn and I were able to do our second set of dive skill exercises within five minutes. This gave us ample time, (about 35 minutes), for our first underwater exploration in Thailand. To name a few we saw Moray Eels, Lizardfish, Trumpetfish, Indian Lionfish, Pufferfish, and Triggerfish.

After our second dive we had a nice dinner and relaxed to the sunset. The "big boys," Davidson and Sam (the certified divers), went on a night dive around seven o'clock. Neil wouldn't take J-Lynn and I because we weren't "certified" enough... Anyways, I ended up putting on my wetsuit and followed them around with a flashlight. I had a great chance to practice my free diving skills which I must say have gotten better since the last time I went out with a snorkel. I was able to dive 5 to 7 meters and stay down for 15-20 seconds each time, it was sweet! At one point I even dove down and grabbed Sam's leg when he wasn't expecting it...I'm suck a jokester.

Once Sam and Davidson were out of site I had J-Lynn keep an eye on me from the side of the boat while I circled around a small reef about 10 yards off. The reef didn't have much going on, that was until I saw a funny looking football shaped thing hovering around. Upon closer inspection I noticed this football shaped being had arms on one side. Besides being alone by myself I was in the dark water with only a flashlight. The fainthearted may have gone back to the boat. I on the other hand chose to hover around, dive, and flashlight this little creature I had discovered. After about fifteen minutes of watching this thing scavenge through the sand with its arms I decided to call it a night. When I got back on the boat Neil told me what I had seen was a Cuttlefish, ( a fish that falls in the same family as octopuses and squid).

Post dive we chilled on some beers and watched some Asia Cup soccer.