DATE:
June 24, 2005
Accompanying Pictures:
Fireshows
Sunset Beach Shots on Phi Phi (ultimate Frisbee, etc)
Diving, friends, and first climbing trip to Ton Sai with Jaime
Second trip to Ton Sai (Climbing)
Ao Nang
Things continue to go well out here. Let me dust off the cobwebs in my brain and search back through the last few weeks since I last wrote to see what is new....
Jaime arrived safe and sound at a town called Krabi which is a 1.5hr boatride from Phi Phi and near Ao Ton Sai, a beach which is world renowned for it's climbing. We stayed in Krabi a couple of nights and did such luxurious things as laundry and I took my first hot shower in quite a while. I believe it's the only hot shower I've had since Bangkok.. well, last night I had a lukewarm one but let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?
We took off for Ao Ton Sai (i.e. "climbing mecca") shortly after to do some, you guessed it - climbing. Or so we thought. Being monsoon season, we picked a bad few days. It rained a LOT and there's not much to do on Ton Sai if you're not climbing. I might have been happy reading in a hammock and listening to the rain, but Jaime had quite a lot on her mind, so we decided to take her to Phi Phi where there is more to do and less to think about. ;) Pictures of the climbing trip as well as a trip out to Maya Bay on Phi Phi Ley (where "The Beach" was filmed) are here.
Climbing at Ao Ton Sai
So now I have a roommate! This makes lodging all that much cheaper. For the days that I dive, I get help with the cost of lodging. The reason they do this is that they are so short of divers that they are giving the long-term folks an incentive to stay longer. It's working. ;) On the days that I don't dive, I'm paying half of what I was due to the split cost with Jaime (so now it's about $3 a day or something close to that). =) Life is good.
Dive Camp
Jaime fell right in step with the Phi Phi life. We took a rescue dive course together, which was a lot of fun. Jaime is very good at playing a panicked diver and I must say I have quite a talent for being unconscious. ;) There was loads of laughter while we did the scenarios, which sometimes confused innocent "bystanders" (i.e. snorkelers out for a day's snorkeling).
As far as dive cleanup goes, we've moved into a new area that has even worse visibility than the area we were in before. There have been times where I've nearly run right into other divers - not seeing them until they were about a foot in front of my face. Did that once with a lionfish too - ooh, scary! 8| Anyway, there's a load of garbage where we are at now. Lots of big stuff. Some divers found an entire bungalow - but I've mainly been picking up metal roofing which has been fairly tough, as most of it is buried under a good deal of sand by now, making it extremely difficult to remove.
One of our divers got hit by an anchor. Pretty intense. We do use safety buoys and the like, but I think some of the local boats aim for them... So this guy was swimming along the bottom minding his own business, and a catamaran came over above him and dropped an anchor. It's unclear whether it was dragging along and hit him or if it dropped right on him, but regardless, it hit his leg. Startled, he shot to the surface. That night he began to get symptoms of the bends. Next morning he was off to Phuket and the decompression chamber. He had 14 hours of chamber time over three days. He seems to be doing quite well now - but still, scary.
Dive conditions - lots of boats around our sites
My regulator was stolen which was disappointing. I had left it to dry
outside my bungalow and forgot to put it back in the room before
playing ultimate Frisbee at sunset. This is a shame as I've left stuff
out before, even overnight and intentionally, with nothing being
taken.
Divers during a lunch break
I went on my first visa run on June 8th which was pretty fun actually. There were about 20 of us from Phi Phi, we had two vans with 10 people each. Air conditioning and a TV screen for watching VCDs. Very good. Only problem was that 10 was probably a little much for the van. It's an 8 hour round trip to Malaysia and there was no, I repeat no, wiggle room. We spent all of 20 minutes in Malaysia and then came right back. Interesting road trip. :) I'll be due again for another visa run in a week or so. This time I'll make sure to spread the vans out a little more!
Another friend of mine, Corinne, and her friend Monica came to visit for a couple of weeks. So we had quite a crew at Phi Phi. I think they had a pretty good time. :) We went to Maya Bay, where the film "The Beach" took place. It was a good day.
Maya Beach
We also did some climbing and they put in some volunteer time. I've been fairly lazy the past 2 weeks with volunteering, what with all the visitors and then just being lazy the rest of the time. Hung out with a crazy Kiwi for a few days, crazy French girl, and a bunch of other crazy people. I'm finding lots of people with similarities to me out here! ;) It's distracting me from diving though - I'm looking forward to getting back to it.
Sunset on Koh Phi Phi
Sunset on Koh Phi Phi
For the past few days I've been climbing at Ao Ton Sai again, just to close this loop. :) It's been a GOOD time this time around. For the first couple of days I climbed with Corinne, Monica, and Kevin (who also showed up for a short visit). It was quite fun! Pictures of climbing are here. Then the three of them left and I spent the last day on my own. It was actually a welcome change as I do like travelling alone because you meet so many people. And guess what - I met some really cool people. Ended up climbing with about 6 others and even went to a beach called Ao Nang with three of them. That is where I'm writing this mail. All of us are typing away. Pictures of Ao Nang and us hanging out are here. Some of these guys are very good climbers, so it was great to try and follow some of their routes. My arms are feeling it today. ;)
Abseiling off the legendary "Groove Tube"
I'll be on a boat back to Phi Phi this afternoon. We are close to the 6 month anniversary of the tsunami, so there will be a celebration on the island tonight. A celebration of its rebirth in a way. Tomorrow I expect to be back in the water and diving again for a good week or two straight. I'm not sure what's in the plans following that. I'd like to take off for a bit and travel around the area and then return to Phi Phi I think. We'll see what happens. The other alternative is to head immediately up to Mongolia which is more what I had originally planned. Hmm... :) That sounds good too...
Fireshow
I have to run and catch a bus soon so I must cut it off here. :)
Cheers!
P.S. More than one person here has mentioned that I remind them of Dori the fish (from "Finding Nemo), by the way... for those of you who've made fun of me for this in the past. I thought you might get a kick out of that. :P In fact... it's my new nickname here.