Adventures By Design

In which the travelers get wet and crispy.

Today was all about getting our laundry done. Both of us were at yet another critical moment in our wardrobe departments. Oh, and we went snorkeling at a coral reef. Which one do you want to hear about? Hmm…? Right, just as we thought…

We woke up early (before 6:00), got packed (bathing suit? towel? Ok, we’re ready.), and waited for our ride to pick us up. We arrived at the dive shop and had a coffee while we waited for other divers to show up from another dive company. Because it is low season, dive shops are starting to scale back their operations, and combine groups so they don’t have to take as many boats out. All together, there were fifteen to twenty divers onboard, with several instructors and dive masters. We boarded the boat and had an efficient and organized orientation to the boat’s features and the day’s itinerary.

The island we visited was a popular dive spot called Koh Bida. It is actually two main islands, with some hard and soft coral reefs around them. Interestingly, the islands are traditionally known for their bird’s nests used to make the famous Bird’s Nest Soup; bamboo and rope ladders can still be seen clinging to the sheer cliffs.

The trip to the islands took about an hour and a half, during which we ate breakfast, lounged about the boat, and prepared for our snorkeling adventure. We’re thinking of learning how to dive, so we were eavesdropping on all the instructors. For example, Ric now knows how to use a compass underwater. There are four levels of PADI certification, and to complete the entry-level (open water) course costs about 14,000 baht, or about $450. We’re told that Thailand is cheaper than most places in the world, so here would be a great place to do it.

Once we arrived at Koh Bida we impatiently waited while all the divers got into the water before we jumped in. It was breathtakingly beautiful. It seemed like we saw hundreds of different kinds of fish, and many of them we couldn’t identify in the reference books aboard. One of our favorites was the black spotted pufferfish, although it didn’t look like the pincushion pufferfish at all; it looked like a freaky mutation experiment between a fish and a potato: picture a light brown colored lump of sandstone and add fins. We also saw several Moorish Idols which have thick black and white stripes and are shaped like an angel fish with a long trailing dorsal fin; one instructor, Rob, told us that you can pick them up by this fin and fling ‘em twenty meters (we took his word for it, and didn’t try it). Throughout our watery voyage we encountered schools of blackfin barracuda, who looked at us curiously, freaking us out a little (they’ve got a mouthful of pointy teeth).

The coral below us was interesting too; it was utterly alien. We saw a barrel sponge that looked like a hollowed-out tree stump, fan coral that looked like the veins of a leaf pressed in a book, and table coral that looked a little like a mushroom in that it had a relatively thin ‘trunk’ with wide ‘leaves’ radiating out. Often the drab rocky bottom would be punctuated by colored starfish, or the even more exotic bright blue Crown of Thorns sea stars. Another un-fishlike denizen we spotted was a banded snake eel. It looked like a black and white stripped snake with a long fin down its back. It swam along the bottom for a couple meters before popping into a tiny hole and disappearing.

But the most spectacular thing we saw was a sea turtle. Floating several meters above, we watched it slowly swimming along a sandy portion of the reef bottom. It was the size of a large serving tray, with a bald head and gently curving flippers sticking off the sides. After a couple minutes it swam under a large boulder and wouldn’t come out, probably waiting for us to go away.

Despite having sunscreen on, we both received nasty sunburns from all our time swimming face-down in the water. Although they will make life uncomfortable for the next day or so, they’re a small price to pay for the wonderful experiences we had.