Day 2 - Koh Bida Nok, Shark Point and Koh Doc Mai.
After all the excitement of the first day it was hard to work out what could happen to top it. A Whaleshark maybe.....but really....they're rare...very rare. Still, I know the sites we were going to today and they were all great sites.
We started the day at Koh Bida Nok - one of the Phi Phi group of islands. It's a mix of hard and soft corals, lot's of boulders, a small swim through...and lot's of life.....
We did it as a drift dive with a gentle current to carry us past the scenery!
The second dive today was at Shark Point. This is actually a series of underwater pinnacles gradually getting shallower until the last one breaks the surface and has a light and a bell on it. We were dropping onto pinnacle 2 and intending to work our way north to pinnacle 1 at the end of the dive. Again there was lot's to see but in truth the visibility wasn't that good. About 15 minutes into the dive Maggie called me to look at a Peacock Mantis shrimp. He was a beauty and I really wanted to get a good shot of him. I managed this one....
....but as I tried to get closer for another go I startled him and he scuttled under a rock. I waited a little to see if he was coming back out but decided I'd better go before the group got too far ahead. As I turned around I saw one diver on my right and started to swim after them. Then a realized that there were another 4 or 5 divers on my left, so thinking that was our group I went after them. Wrong group!! By now I was over the sand between the two pinnacles so I turned around and headed back the way I'd come. No one.....and the vis was awful as well. OK...... search for a minute.......no one.......surface. No one there either. There was nothing else to do than call the dive so I signaled the boat and they came and got me. A couple of minutes later Maggie also appeared. She'd realized I wasn't there and when she couldn't find me run the numbers and surfaced. Good girl.
Oh well...... stuff happens. It's not ideal losing your buddy but that's why you learn what to do when it happens right?
The third dive of the day is one of my favorites in the Andaman sea - Koh Doc Mai. It's a really nice wall dive that generally has a brisk current running north to south. You hardly have to swim at all - just float along looking at stuff. Today the vis wasn't great but I still enjoyed it immensely. I didn't see the ghost pipe fish that I saw the last time I was here but still.....
So that was the end of the two day leg to the south and we headed back to Patong. Everyone except Maggie and I were leaving the boat and we'd have a bunch of new people to go to the north with. Back in Patong we all got off (even if you're staying on you leave the boat to let them clean everything and refuel etc) Maggie and I had a few hours to kill so we went to a scuba store and I bought a pair of Lycra socks to stop by new full foot fins from chafing my ankles. Then we went back to the pier and took a few pictures of the longtail boats they use here....
...before sitting in a beach side bar and having a couple of beers before we rejoined the boat.
An hour later we were watching the "newbies" get their first briefing etc.....and then more firecrackers as we left......and an overnight trip to the Similans......