Diving at Ko Hai!!

April 5th, 2002 at 12:00am

Ahhh. Back on Ko Lanta, in town at the moment, having a pedicure. A arrived back here the day before yesterday after taking the 30-minute long-tail boat from Railey to Krabi and then the 2-hour ferry from Krabi to Ko Lanta.. So. Yesterday I FINALLY went on a dive trip! After all the time I’ve been in Thailand, I still can’t believe I hadn’t gone yet, but I kept telling myself that I was saving my money for the Similan Islands, which is a chain of islands north of Phuket and is said to be one of the top dive spots in the world. So since I’m on Lanta and there is good diving here, I said well I should do a few day trips and get refreshed with my skills and then I will decide on the Similan liveaboard trip.

The trip I did yesterday was to Ko Hai, a small uninhabited island about 1.5 hours south of Ko Lanta by boat. We did 2 dives, both at a depth of 20 meters, or 66 feet. The whole conversion thing took some getting used to since I was trained in feet and psi and here they dive in meters and barr. I was really lucky in that I got assigned my own dive master so even though there were about 16 divers in the group, when we were in the water it was only me and him. Definitely got to see more stuff I think.

The first dive was really good but since I hadn’t been diving in almost a year (since Cozumel), I was feeling a little nervous and watching my air and dealing with buoyancy more than I was enjoying the dive. The second dive though was incredible! The water was so clear and visibility was great. The best thing we saw on the second dive was an octopus! He was pretty big and was laying on the sandy bottom trying to be the color of the sand. But we spotted him alright. Then he started changing colors and finally swam away. It was SO cool! Andy (the dive master) had a SONY digital camera with underwater casing and he was able to capture a video of the octopus. Amazing! Really good day. The Fin Addicts should definitely do a trip to Thailand!

Dive site #1 at Ko Hai

Very large fish with oxygen tanks?

Sunset at Rapala, Ko Lanta (my bungalow)

Entry Filed under: Diving,Koh Lanta,South,Thailand