Last Trip to Phuket This Year

Hwai Tah, Sherene, Nataly, and Jacky will be taking a cab to LCCT tomorrow while Andrew will join us on his own. Janielle will get to complete her Discover Scuba stint a year back and get certified on this trip.

Feeling a bit nolstagic already, having been to Phuket quite often, and each trip was filled with different memories.

The best were when Jessica and the girls joined me midway while I was spending a couple of weeks doing my dive training last year for two long stretches. You know, when you're away for a spell from those you spend your life with everyday, ....

Anyway,

Diving conditions are challening this season. The latest update today describes good diving and sunny weather so far, even though the seas are expected be rougher. That means the big fish are aplenty.

Interesting huh. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. That's when you see less of the wimpy and small fries. Hmmm. Life's like that huh.

Latest update:

17 June 2008Weather After a nice high season, some unusual rains in April though, the wind has shifted. After this wind direction change we always have some unsettled weather, which happened in the middle of May. We are having very nice weather lately; today it is sunny, there is a slight breeze, the seas are very calm.

The diving is very nice at the moment, with quite lots of ghost pipe fish, frogfish and seahorses at Shark Point, Bida Islands and Koh Doc Mai.

Also plenty of sharks in the area, both leopard sharks and black tips at the Bida islands, lots of jacks, and we even saw a whale shark at the King Cruiser wreck and at Racha Yai a few days ago.
Temperatures of appx. 34 degrees Celsius (90 Fahrenheit), sea temperatures of 29 degrees Celsius (84 Fahrenheit).

The visibility is ok at the moment. On average: Racha Noi 20 meters, Racha Yai 15-20 meters, Phi Phi 10-15 meters, Shark Point area 10-15 meters, Hin Daeng/Muang 15-20 meters, no diving at Kata Beach or Similans. Visibility in the area varies a lot day by day.

Sightings Besides the usual things to see, there are lots of leopard sharks at the moment, and also the number of white tip and black tip reef sharks has risen dramatically since last year. And there are of course the usual things to see.

At Similans, Koh Bon, Koh Tachai and Richelieu Rock there are apart from the pretty standard nursesharks, leopard sharks and reefsharks also humphead parrot fish, Napoleons and quite a few turtles.

At these sites we also see nice small life like harlequin shrimp, nudibranches, etc.
At Shark Point: seahorse, nursesharks and of course leopard sharks; at Anemone Reef turtles, nursesharks and quite often a leopard shark in the 5 meter range; at Koh Doc Mai 2 seahorses and a frogfish; 3 different shark species, plenty of scorpion and lion fish and also a turtle at King Cruiser.

Turtles, see needles, a frogfish and frequently manta rays at Racha Islands; turtles, leopard sharks, seahorses and different types of reefshark at Phi Phi.