We started out with a trip to the Similan islands with Chloe, Jack and Kerstin for a day of Deep diving. On the fantastic MV Naam Sai, the day trip vessel of Sea Dragon, we had a comfortable ride over to the Similan island number five and seven.
Timed tasks and color changes underwater during the Deep Dive specialty
We started out with the deeper dive of the specialty at island number five, going down to almost 40 meters and circling a sunken, small tuna fishing trawler at depth, before comfortably ascending and doing our safety stops at 12, 9, 6 and 5 meters. A very enjoyable dive indeed, followed by a second deep dive at island number seven at the site referred to as 'West of Eden'.
Here we did a few tasks, required for the specialty training, including pressure related, timed and navigational tasks as well as observing color changes at depth.
Fish soup at the Boonsung wreck
Two great dives in great conditions with nice visibility, where we also met the 'Green Monster', a thermo cline (temperature and visibility drop) accompanied by a strong current at depth during the second dive.
White margin nudibranch at the Boonsung wreck
During day two, with Kerstin and Jack, we went over the Boonsung wreck for the Digital underwater photography instructor specialty. This dive site is what the divers in
Khao Lak refer to as a local dive site, it's about half an hour by car and 45 minutes to an hour by long tail away.
It's a great dive site and as one of the pictures above shows, it's like swimming or rather diving in fish soup at times, among big schools of jack fish and trevallies.
This dive site is also known for being able to spot lots of other fish, like honey comb eels and a wide variety of nudibranches. Just to name a few.
Last but not least we conducted a Gas Blender Instructor course with an almost completely different set of participants. Chloe, Ann, Andi, Nicha and Joerg participated in this course and we completed the tank fills with a state of the art Draeger compressor at PADI Dive Center Wetzone. Thanks Micha for allowing us to use the compressor!
Good dives and fun was had over a couple of days and we have a handful of new PADI Specialty Instructors on the block!
See you there,
Camille
Labels: Diving, DSAT Gas Blender, Kao Lak, Similan Islands, Specialties