30/05/12 - A bit of a dive

[These photos are not actually ours, given the failure of gogglecam, so a general disclaimer that we don't own the copyright. That said, we did pay for the photo CD so think we're ok...]

A fancy collage of all the dive photos - it would have quickly been obvious that they aren't our photos!

Quick toilet break at the
King Cruise facilities

Game faces on pre-dive setting up
the equipment

Given the success of the previous day, we hedged our bets and headed out on a diving trip that morning. We’d read that the Phuket province was a gem in Thailand’s diving scene, so felt we couldn’t give it a miss. Had three dives in the day, at King Cruiser Wreck, Shark Point and Flower Island, getting an amazing selection of reef and marine life.

Cool coral

Seahorse action baby! 

As is always the way on these things, the quality of the dive is primarily determined by the standard of the dive master leading you (after our experience in Port Philip Bay, where we ended up at least a km away from the boat when we surfaced – not ideal! – we don’t really like going out on our own) and the ability of others in your group. Tony called it early, saying this one girl was a princess, and it proved accurate in the first dive – she ran out of air after hands and legs flapping all over throughout. When we surfaced, her boyfriend brushed it off as something that happened regularly (“she’s an air-guzzler”) but we tried to steer clear for the remaining dives, to the extent we could…

Never get bored of the ol' Lionfish

Bit of a stoney faced fish...

For some strange reason,
Tony is upside down here.
Probably showing off, knowing
the cameraman was nearby...

It didn’t ruin the dives at all though – the highlights were the moray eels, two entwined nurse sharks, a large lobster, a stone fish, numerous lion fish, two cool seahorses (the first we’ve ever seen underwater) and a sea-snake (which Tony was particularly proud of, as it wasn’t pointed out to us by the dive master!).

Moray action

Back on dry land, and dropped off back at our hotel, we thought we’d better head to Lucky Tom’s again – it had been two days since we last went!

As always, a big grin from Tony for
the camera. Who knows why Annaliza's
doing an underwater moonwalk...

Key Learnings:

1. Might not be the most courteous, but sometimes you have to kick people with your fins underwater to let them know they’ve not got right of way wherever they go…