On The Globe Again

Seein' things that I may never see again…

Posts Tagged ‘phi phi ley’

Tsunami Dive Camp

June 24th, 2005

Things continue to go well out here. Let me dust off the cobwebs in my brain and search back through the few weeks since I last wrote to see what is new….

We took off for Ao Ton Sai (i.e. “climbing mecca”) 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 is not much to do at 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 rescue scenarios, which sometimes confused innocent “bystanders” (i.e. snorkelers out for a day’s snorkeling) who didn’t always realize were were all in good fun.

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!! Swimming along, oh hellooooo Mr Lionfish. Let me back away slowly… 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 corrugated 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. It also contributes to the poor visibility.

One of our divers got hit by an anchor as it came down from an overhead boat. The scene was 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 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, thankfully.

Dive conditions - lots of boats around our sites

My regulator was stolen which was disappointing. I had left it outside my bungalow to dry 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 like that before, even overnight and intentionally, with nothing being taken. (sigh) Oh well. What can ya do. At least I didn’t get hit by an anchor today.

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. I organized the trip and somehow ended up with no real seat. 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. I think they had a pretty good time. :) We went to Maya Bay, where the film “The Beach” took place and did some climbing. They also 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, a 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.

Maya Beach Koh Phi Phi Ley

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 another friend from back home – Kevin. Loads of visitors! 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…

Fire Show

I have to run and catch a bus so I must cut it off here.