OK, is it really December, and I'm waking up to 80 degree weather and a 7:30 AM dive? Yup, life can be good.
I should note that the Similan Islands have vibrant reefs, plentiful sealife, and each trip has potential for submarine magic. It happened on Dive #1 today. Barely shaking the cobwebs out of my eyes, we dipped down to about 110 feet and allowed the current to push us into the path of an 8 foot Leopard Shark, large octopus, and very large sea turtle gnawing on soft reef. I'm not joking, all in a 30 second time frame. It was top of the list as far my "dive moments."
We did 2 more dives today, following stingrays, lionfish, scorpionfish, moray eels, an octopus changing color from black to beige after we chased it, and about a thousand other fish I couldn't identify. I've had the chance to dive in some unique places, but this ranks very high on the list for the overall amount of sealife. From my eyes, perhaps only Kealakekua Bay on Big Island comes close.
The ride back was torture. The speedboat failed again, this time it was unfortunately NOT a shark. The boat captain's emergency "technical" attempts of simply starting, stopping, starting and stopping (times 100) the engine got us nowhere. Stranded with no land in sight in any direction, we waited for another boat to pick us up. After we finally returned, waited another 45 minutes for our bags to come, we "enjoyed" a 2 hour bus-ride on dark windy curves, back to the hostel.
A quick cheeseburger, need to shower, and more adventure tomorrow... Hopefully no more sharks or bad engines...
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