Diving – good and bad

Busy busy on the island…almost no time to relax! Yesterday morning I went on my first dive in Malaysia with Alex. She’s already certified and we had a good time snorkling together so we decided that we’d dive together. We chose Coral Sky Dive Center, one of several here, because it had been recommened to me by one of the dive masters at Ko Lanta. What a mistake! Well, maybe the dive shop is ok but our dive master was crap. To top it off the conditions were horrible – after a few days of rain everything was churned up and the sea was really rough. We went to a site called Twin Rocks, to a depth of 19.6 meters. The visibility was so bad – you could barely see the diver in front of you! There were hardly any fish either – all I saw were 2 lionfish and one big trigger fish that attacked the divemaster’s fin! Lots of reasons why both Alex and I were unhappy with the dive – the conditions of course but that’s nobody’s fault, but really neither of us felt safe with this particular divemaster and in those conditions with poor visibilty (2-3 meters) and strong current it’s so important to feel safe. There were no buddies assigned, a very quick and uninformative explanation of the dive, and generally the divemaster was screwing around with the photographer more than watching his group. Also he did not pay attention to how much air people had left and even though Alex told him when she had 50 barr, he still continued the dive and by the time she got up she only had 5 barr left (ie no air!!). Disappointing, especially because we both had such high expectations after hearing such good things about the Perhentians.

After all that we decided not to do an afternoon dive. Instead I hung out at the bungalow with my roomate Mannie – it was a rainy, stormy afternoon so he read his book and I napped for awhile. Then later in the day the rain stopped and the skies cleared and Alex, Mannie, and I went to the other side of the island for a late day snorkle, then decided to watch the sunset and have dinner at one of the places on the beach. There we sat for quite a few hours, as we talked and watched the sky turn pink then blue then black into the night. It was a clear night with many, many twinkly stars in the sky. Yes, we all agreed that the stars here seem particulary’twinkly’.

So. Today Alex and I decided to try our luck with another dive shop on the island, this time signing up with Turtle Bay Divers. Immediatley we felt better with them when they actually checked to see our certification cards. We were assigned a really good divemaster, Jo, from Australia, who went over a thorough briefing of the dive and in general was much more attentive and aware of her divers. Unfortuneatley though the conditions were still not very good …today we went to the Pinnacle (Temple of the Sea) which is supposed to be one of the best sites here. Seems like every other diver on the island had the same idea because there were 10 other dive boats there and about 90 divers in the water. Agh! Visibilty was not as bad as yesterday but still poor and the current was even stronger then yesterday. So we didn’t see much – just a lot of moray eel, one blue spotted sting ray, and some other fish. I didn’t realize how good I had it in Ko Lanta with excellent visibilty, no current, and just me and the divemaster in the water! Oh well. It’s all good experience, but I don’t think I want to spend any more money diving here when the snorkling is free and actually much better than the diving at the moment. Not much you can do when the conditions are bad and the rain we’ve been having the past few days is definitely the reason.

Alex and I both decided to take the afternoon off again today and when we got back from the dive the sun was shining and the sky was blue so we were happy to hang out on the island and enjoy the good weather. First thing we did was all our laundry to clean out all our damp clothes. Then Alex, Mannie and I went to the other side of the island for another afternoon of snorkling. The vis wasn’t even that good over there and there were some sea lice so none of us stayed in too long. (I was out with Mannie for about an hour.) Now we’re all hanging out on our porches, me writing this, Mannie listening to some of my CD’s in my walkman, Alex spraying her bungalow after finding an ant nest with hundreds and hundreds of ants under her mattress. Tomorrow is my last day here and I haven’t decided if I’ll try diving again or just relax on the beach. Back to Thailand and Ko Samui then on Friday.

Mannie on Snorkle Beach

Mannie and I resting after a tough snorkle (well, not really)

See, everyones doing it!

Add comment May 1st, 2002