February 6,

We had to set an alarm this morning!!! We got up at six (Jeff had already been awake). He has been awakening way early lately. Anyway, we readied and went out by 0645. Today we have two dives scheduled. We arrived by 0700; got all set up with equipment (BCD’s, regulators, masks and fins); met our dive guide, Jacob from Slovakia; and went to the boat. We all boarded. There is one one other guy, Robbie from Germany, with us, but there are at least five other, different diving groups. Some are learning – getting certified, others are open water, others advanced like us, and many different nationalities.

We took off; briefed on the way; and arrived at the site, 10 km ride. It was maybe around 0830. The first site was called Southwest Pinnacle. All of us geared up and did a buddy check of equipment – guide did a triple check. Into the water we went. It was very poor visibility – very murky, that’s a bummer!! But as we went down it improved some. The first 20 feet had a bunch of plankton that clouded the water, but as this cleared, the rock pinnacle became visible. We have been spoiled by Maldives waters! Anyway, we saw lots of soft Sea Anemones – like what “Nemo” lived in. There were all over the rock surfaces. The formation of the pinnacle is one large with many small ones around. We also saw some Tuna, and Barracudas. I spotted a sleeping turtle and pointed it out to all. Toward the end of the dive there was the largest school of fish Jeff and I had ever seen. You could swim into them and become encircled. It was cool!! We finished the dive and went back to the boat. It was a busy site – lots of other groups, at least four other boats full.

All aboard, the boat set off to next site. We were served a tray of fruit- some watermelon and pineapple. Most people took some. Then Jacob briefed the three of us on our next dive. It is a combination of two dive sites right next to each other. The first was a sank wreck, the HTMS Sattakut. It was sank in June of 2011. The Sattakut was an U.S. Naval small war ship from WWII. It was almost 50m (164 feet) long. There were two places that we could do brief swim-thrus, one of which had a big Long-nosed Emperor fish hiding in it. It was fascinating site and wreck. From here we swam to the other site, Hin Pee Wee. Here we saw smaller pinnacle formations of varying heights. Visibility turned poor again, but we saw more variety of fish here. Parrot fish, Angelfish, Butterfly-fish, Banner-fish, and a couple of stingrays called Jenkin’s Whip-ray. I kept seeing big clams all throughout the coral and even saw a large Horse Conch Shell, but did not seem to have the critter inside it. We surfaced and returned to the boat. We decided we won’t be doing a lot of dives, but our guide did talk up another site. We said we will do that one and be done. It is a long way by boat, so they only go every other day. So we will do that.

The boat took us all back to Koh Tao. We arrived at the pier, but had to go through three boats to get onto the pier! Back at the dive shop, Jeff went to see about the other dive and I started unpacking our equipment. We left, but I had to go back as I left the bag I was carrying. Jeff stayed and waited for me to come back. He got a coconut shake to share. We went to Pranee’s Kitchen for lunch. We had two mains: a Pineapple Hamburger, fries, and salad; and Green Curry Chicken with rice. Both were good. We like Pranee’s. We shared a large water. Finished, we went back to our place and had a siesta.

For supper we opted to stay at our places restaurant. We went down and had Tom Kha Gai soup, and Fried Cashew Nut with Chicken and rice. I had a chocolate shake and Jeff had a Beer. This bill was 485 Baht ($14.40). When we finished we walked down the beach some for a nice sunset. It almost kissed the ocean. We saw a large turtle statue here that we had not seen before. It had one of the many dive shop’s name on it. This island has more dive shops on it, I think than restaurant/cafes! It is a crazy amount.

Anyway, we went back to our room and just relaxed, watching some YouTube and a movie. Overall, I’m glad to have dove, but a bit disappointed with the visibility of the water. Still a good day.