Diving at Ko Phi Phi

Dive Day

Dive 1 - Maya Nui, Dive 2 - Maya Wall

Matt and I have been working on our class work in spare time and today while the others did some reef monitoring work, we performed our first dives.  We took a longtail boat out to the Navada and cruised for 2+ hours to Phi Phi Leh (the southern of the two major Phi Phi Islands).  During this time we went over our equipment in a great amount of detail with Mon our dive instructor, and reviewed once again the skills we would be working on underwater.

Finally it was time to go and into the sea we went.  That first breath of water is such an unnatural sensation, even knowing you have this large cannister of air on your back.  I was a bit apprehensive going under the first time, and didn't equalize soon enough or often enough so had to come back up initially, calm down, and try again.

  Second try was much better.  We made a 45 minute dive, working on a variety of skills involving working with our dive equipment in the water and on the surface and working with our dive buddy in the water.  After our first dive we came up for lunch and then made a second dive in the afternoon, working again on our skills.  Even working there is so much life to see down here.  Didn't see any truly interesting creatures but the sea life is quite amazing to watch in its environment.

Or 2nd dive was about 35 minutes long.  By the time all the other divers returned from their activities to the boat it was nearly 4 PM.  We had the 2 hour voyage back to Noppharat Thara.  This put us back right as the sun was setting and we had a pretty good sunset view from the deck of the boat.  This also meant a pretty late dinner by the time we got back to the house and cleaned up our gear.

Also lost the first volunteer during my time on the project as Ivan departed today for other travels in Thailand.