Similan Islands Diving Trip, Day 2

Up about 6:15, before wakeup call, had toast and tea, then we had our first dive briefing, and first dive about 8:00. This dive site is called Barracuda Point. Katrin bailed almost immediately. I was super anxious and stressed, this was my first deep dive (30 metres) in 5 years. As we went down, the current was very strong, I felt pressure on my lungs, and I felt like I wasn't getting enough oxygen, and my buddy wasn't there. As we got deeper, I was on the verge of calling it quits and going back up. Mind over matter, mind over matter. It seemed to take forever to get down, and I don't really remember any of it, I was too self absorbed, wondering if I should ascend. When we finally reached the bottom, 30 metres, we found a sandy spot, and Seth did a couple of exercises with Don and Andrea. They were doing their Advanced Open Water course, so Seth would be quizzing them off and on for the first few dives. As they did their exercises, I was able to relax a bit, and start breathing more normally and get my heart beat down. Mind over matter. Now I felt better. Problem #2: I was so stressed and breathing so heavily, my oxygen went down much quicker than expected. As the dive went on, I got down to 50 bar (the limit, when you should ascend) way before everyone else. So that we wouldn't have to cut the dive short because of me, I breathed on Seth's secondary regulator for awhile, saving my oxygen for our safety stop.

After the first dive, Seth moved me to a bigger tank. We had breakfast, then had the opportunity to go ashore to a beautiful sandy white beach with a resort. You can rent tents too, but I couldn't find out how much.

We did our second dive around 11:30. Katrin made it down this time, after a bit of a struggle. I fared much better. The second dive site was called East of Eden.

After second dive, we had lunch. There are two cooks on board, cooking fresh meals for us three times daily.

Third dive happened mid afternoon, called West of Eden. Very nice dive.

After third dive, had snacks. I was a pig, so hungry, and gobbled everything up. Diving uses so much energy, you burn so many calories, it's important to eat and drink lots.

A bunch of us rested on the upper deck as the sun set. All of a sudden Elana, hot Italian girl, started yelling dolphins, dolphins. Every jumped, and about 200 metres from the boat, a large pod of dolphins were swimming along, some even jumping out of the water.

We did our night dive about 7:30, and I was quite anxious. My only other night dive was 5 years ago, and I remember it being quite scary, because you can't anything, except where your torch is pointing. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We saw quite a few lobsters and a big red crab. The night dive at the same dive site as dive 3, West of Eden.

Had supper after the night dive, and then hung out. I went to the upper deck about 9:30 to find all the dive masters sharing a joint. LOL.

Went to bed about 10:00, after almost everyone else had gone to bed.

Incidentally, during the dives, we see lots and lots of fishes and corals and stuff. Much of it is fairly typically, so I'm only going to remark about exciting things I see on the dives.