The Liveaboard! 3 Nights 3 days!

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  Similan Islands, Thailand
Sunday, March 23, 2008

The live-aboard was great - I was excited as soon a Juliet agreed that it was the best plan for both of
us. We went over to the dive shop and signed on to the boat leaving that evening and then down to the beach for
swimming, sun and massage.
I may have over done th sun as after we were done I was a little burnt but also feeling a little heat
stroke coming on (have we mentioned its really hot here?) so I went back to our room and laid in front of
the fan and drank water for an hour or so while Juliet went to town. Finally it was time to go to the dive shop - we got there a bit early to beat the afternoon's torrential down pour, some others were not so lucky....
We met some of the other people who would be going with us-a total of 16 - 14 divers and 2 snorkelers (Juliet and the daughter of a woman from Sweden) and then we were loaded into a couple of Sangthews for the 20 minute ride to the harbor. As soon as we got to the boat they took our shoes away had us board and we were shown to our cabin -a little room with bunks and a window much like the overnight train but with air conditioning. Once underway we chatted a little with our boat mates and the staff - had a boat and dive briefing over a few beers and before you knew it it was time for bed -
Diving would begin at 6:45 the next morning. They woke us up at 6:45 and we were brought up for another briefing on the dive site - Once done we geared up in groups and it was dive dive dive!!! 4 dives, including a night dive on day 1, 3 dives on day two and 2 dives on day 3. The diving was spectacular,  and totally
different from any other diving I have ever done. The corals and fans were unbelievably colorful, the # of
fish was stunning. Because this was the Andaman Sea, part of the Indian Ocean, there were many different
types of fish and coral then you would see in the Caribbean.

Some stuff we saw was butterfly fish, Clown Fish (nemo), strange eels, Lion-fish which are crazy looking,
millions of tiny orange and blue and yellow fish all over the reef, crazy corals that I have never seen and
don't know the names of, scorpion fish, many different nudibranches (sea slugs, but very colorful) ohh yeah
and a GIANT MANTA RAY!!! it was on the last dive and about 12-15 feet across - unreal. The best part was it spent about 25 minutes with us and then treated those on the boat when it surfaced, so everyone got to see. All in all it was the best, the crew were all real cool, the food was a bit over the top - about 4 meals per day (I thought I would be losing weight), the Singha was delicious and the other divers/snorkelers were all ok. There was a mix of people from the UK, Finland, Sweden, Germany, and the U.S.

Good times, I think Palau is in the future..... (once Juliet learns to dive)

Juliet:
I had a fantastic time on the Live-aboard boat even though I don't scuba dive. I still enjoyed  myself snorkeling and going to the beautiful beaches. I snorkeling with giant turtles and was lucky enough to see the Manta Ray because it surfaced around our boat. (a magical moment for me!). Russel insisted the Manta had a crush on him because it kept circling around him while scuba diving........I don't know.....

On to Chaing Mai......

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Dining and briefing area	Russell relaxing between dives	Juliet enjoying some sun   Comments!	Our cabin
Dive leader and dive group	Juliet snorkeling with Turtles	Juliet and Russell	turtle
sunset	another sunset	part of the dive group	giant manta ray!   Comments!
one of the bechews visited	dive deck	can you tell this was self timed?	friends from the Boat back on land

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