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SCUBA Certs, Check
3:02 AM
Do you see the itty bitty people up on top of that rock?? This was the spot for our very first dive called Donald Duck Bay, see why:
Tons of snorkel trips come out here too. There are speed and dive boats everywhere, it's a bit nuts. With all of the diving Ryan did off Okinawa, he never saw a sea turtle, it was the only goal he had for our diving here. Within the first minute of our first dive, we saw a green turtle!! We actually saw three turtles the whole trip so he was pumped.
Our overnight was such a good call (aside from my not sleeping a wink). All of the day timers left, it was only us, Tek, Dennis, the Thai crew and three other overnighters, David, Kathrin and Claudia. David's a Spaniard who moved to London years ago when their economy tanked. He now works in a super posh hotel and had a pretty funny run in with GOT's Cersie! He's also doing his Open Water Cert. Kathrin and Claudia are German friends who work in marketing at the same company. Claudia is a diver but Kathrin is a good sport and came along for the snorkeling. She's the only one of us who saw a shark. They were all so nice and of course spoke fantastic English (we're so spoiled!). We had a blast telling stories, checking out the islands and once we noticed the disco ball, had a dance party. FYI - you should ALWAYS have a dance party playlist on your phone because you never know when a party on a boat in the middle of the ocean needs to happen. I had to take another shower afterwards because the Thai crew was laughing at me sweating through my shirt.
The reefs in Similan are currently in recovery from a spike in water temperature years back which caused all of the coral to bleach and die. Just now the colors are coming back and new growth is taking off. Even without the intense coral colors, the Similan reefs are really interesting as the islands are made up of HUGE boulders of granite and limestone that have toppled into the water creating really fun areas to swim around. We saw: green turtles, sea snakes, garden eels, clown fish in their lil anemone homes, parrot fish loudly chomping at coral, lionfish, sea cucumbers, blue spotted stingray, a lobster with a 4' antenna span, tuna eating other fish, monster pufferfish, and so many of their colorful friends. I think my favorites though are these little blackfish that live in the branch coral that start out teeeeeeeny tiny and closest to the coral, then their slightly older and bigger versions are the next layer and then the slightly bigger ones are the next moving farther and farther out from the coral almost in rings. They all move together and it's like you could capture 10 generations all arranged by height in one picture of this coral.
Staying overnight allowed us to have sunset and sunrise dives. So quiet and so beautiful.
But after a few big jumps off the sun deck, we had to say goodbye to this lovely place. I can't wait to come back with more experience and dive in some of the other locations known for manta rays.
We got back to town and went out to dinner at the slowest restaurant in the world!! We both had finished our drinks and we're ready to drop money and just pay for those and leave when we realized we didn't have small enough money to leave, we would need change... So we waited it out. This family sitting next to us was staring at us, like really staring at us and watching us... Ryan suspected that they were interested because we're American, I thought it was because we looked like a couple of zombies freaking out over being so tired and so hungry. I mean we're sweating, we're rubbing our faces, my shirt was on inside out and I didn't even know it. We were stupid tired. It was weird. And then an older couple hopped out of a cab walked three steps to the first table on our other side and almost DIED falling into the chairs. They were grasping at the chairs and wheezing... It was three steps, what are they even doing out of the house? To add to the weirdness, Ryan went to the bathroom in which there are three partial walls around each urinal. He was encouraged with some local artwork to do his business:
Another fun nightlife thing in Bang Naing is these rival bars on opposing corners trying to beat each other out in twinkle lights. And dogs and cats do not care about you or anything that's happening around them It's like they're dead on the sidewalk.
Except for one who was the cheeriest doggy with her little bow. She would hop onto her owners scooter for rides to and from town.
Anyways, I slept great that night and took many naps the next day. Goodnight Bang Niang.
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