Came October, I was already feeling the fatigue from the ongoing workload and looked forward more than ever to the trip, now seen as an opportunity to give my brain a total rest, instead of just another diving trip. 2011 has also seen me becoming an anti-social more than ever so the idea of having some of the (used to be) close friends on board brought excitement in me. I used to meet or at least talk to some of these friends on daily basis at certain points of life but different career paths and life priorities have now distanced us.
Anyway, 13th December finally came and after a chaotic day of packing and last minute checks on my students' research theses, off we went to the airport and flew to Phuket. Due to flight delays, we boarded Peterpan later than planned that night but even with the tired eyes, Peterpan gave a very good first impression. The first thing that caught my eyes were how clean and organised the boat was and the friendliness of their staff.
The next 4 days were just about diving, good food, relaxing (qada' tido!) and catching up with old friends. It was a bliss. Some of the dive sites such as Deep Six, Richelien Rock (a site near to the Burma border)and Elephant Head Rock were beautiful with many swim throughs and walls filled with beautiful fans and soft corals while Boon Sung Wreck was a happening scene rich with various marine lifes that I didn't managed to go around the whole wreck. The only disappointment of the trip was that we didn't get to see any manta rays eventhough we did 3 dives at Koh Bon,embracing the current in the process. It didn't really matter to me though since I have seen them during the Komodo LOB trip back in 2009. My secret wish when I first boarded Peterpan was to see a whaleshark and voila!.. I did!
It was after lunch at Koh Bon and I just got up from a quick snooze when I saw a 'polka dot thingy' swimming away from the side of the boat. It took me a few minutes to make sense of what I saw and the moment I did, I was glad that Chotty and Abang Roy were beside me. They too managed to catch a sight of it before it disappeared into the blue. Both of them have seen live whalesharks before so they made reliable witnesses. So yeah, my wish came true although only for a quick few minutes!
Anyway, now for some photos:
Peterpan cruise boat with Edu's group in view (pic by ScubaTIM)
Beautiful fans inside one of the swim throughs at West of Eden.
A pregnant tiger tail seahorse at Richelien Rock
A red frogfish (can't remember which dive site)
A charging cuttlefish
A lovey-dovey pair of black and silver trevallies. Love chasin' them around! (Please excuse the quality of the pic, my WA skills are still below par)
Big Boss in his muay thai boxing short on the way up the hill at Donald Duck Bay (is that its real name??)
Beautiful sunset from the top of the hill
Old and new friends onboard Peterpan. Hope to see you guys again in Bali next year!
My broadband is seriously slow tonight so that's all the photos for now. Will upload more on facebook when I have more time. Happy new year everyone!
My broadband is seriously slow tonight so that's all the photos for now. Will upload more on facebook when I have more time. Happy new year everyone!
1 comment:
They're great pics Ryzah. Truly first class, despite your comments of black spots and so forth. Nice to see that you've updated something on the blog. I think we really have to encourage one another to continue updating our blogs, eh :)
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