The Beach & Below

Merry Christmas People

As I am sitting in my very expensive hotel bungalow I have been reading about you all in the UK. Rob is back for the wedding, Lizzy finally gets sometime off, Michelle wishes she could hit the pause button, Paula has run out of time & my sister is piddled. I guess the drinking gene missed my parents generation & we do enough for our Viking predecessors.

Today I got my Xmas pressy......I got to go diving!! We have stayed 4 nights in Ko Lanta so Olga can do her open water & Ben and myself can dive. This morning we headed off to Myra bay. I was a little apprehensive because I always use my air too quickly and Ben is like a whale and could only surface once in three days. Anyway, off we went and as time passed we met our A.M.A.Z.I.N.G guide & headed to the bay which is where the beach was filmed.

As you all know above the water is beautiful but below the water is unreal. We decented straight onto a stegostorna fasciaturn [leopard shark for everyone but Justin]. Then ben dragged us away to see a resting turtle, which he stroked & got told off. This dive was 47 minutes long & I obviously finished low on air but the highlights were seeing pipefish,
scorpion fish, many varieties of shrimp a painted lobster and then a reef octopus which
changed colour twice as we watched him.

Then we surfaced and waited for the pick up, I felt silly getting a pick up until I turned around as saw we all got picked up because you couldn't get to the beach as 1 million Leo Fans were having their photos taken on the beach.


After a Thai curry lunch we headed to Ko Bida Nok and I was given a much bigger tank to keep us under for longer, we managed 58 minutes and I got to 40bar.....I must practice this somehow to get better.

At first I found this dive a challange because my tank and weights made me unbalanced and I was diving at 90 degrees (not ideal)...anyway it still had a great variety of things....black diadems sea urchins, eels, puffer fish and more pipefish & shrimps. Anyways the real treat is we saw a seahorse.....when I say saw, what I mean is I saw the coral looked different and my guide and ben said it was a seahorse so it mist have been. I did however see the many hidden & overt kuhl's stingray. Also it was funny when we had to take a wide berth around a Titan triggerfish as it tried to swim at our divemaster IEB. Anyway I can fully recommend Ko Lanta to dive & palm beach divers aregood people to go with.

We have another day tomorrow and hopefully my air is better :-)

Miss you x