More Specialities and my first whale shark sighting!
God only knows what I do to these keyboards on my laptop, but this is the second one I’ve nearly killed. This is the second keyboard I’ve had on this computer and one of the shift keys, the numbers 2, 3 and 7, the right arrow key and the letter z don’t work. Can’t wait to key my external keyboard connected back in Okinawa so I can type at full speed again. But this blog isn’t about my computer, and I’m sure you don’t want to hear these things, so onto the diving!
Yesterday we went on our last day of diving as part of our speciality courses. We had another deep dive to do, plus I had a dive as part of my Digital Underwater Photography course to do. Once again the weather was glorious, with just a slight breese to take the edge off the heat. Someone had seen sense too, and decided to replace the canvas roofing on the top deck of the boat, so people could keep out of the sun if they wishes but still not be cooped up inside. As part of our deep dive we made a full support station at 5m down, with a drop line going 40m down. The support station had a cylinder, BCD and reg set for making staged no-deco stops and we each ahd to use this for one minute during our safety stop at the end. We prepared that on the journey out, and as we were doing this rumour spread among the boat that a whale shark had been spotted by numerous boats at Sail Rock. That definately got my attention - never seen one of them before and would love the chance to see one first-hand in the wild.
We were probably not going to see it on our first dive though, as this was a straight drop down to 35m and then a slow ascent back to the surface. I elected to take the shotgun role, being the last person on the line going down and the last one coming back up. I like being able to keep an eye on people when doing a dive like this. The visibility was excellent, topping around 20m until we hit a thermocline at 28m. The water then went suddenly greenish and vis dropped to less than a metre. On the ascent I saw a huge barracuda in the distance, but it only hung around for a few seconds before going back into the blue so I couldn’t point it out. Got back onto the boat and the conversation was all about one thing: the whale shark. Almost all of the divers had spotted it during their first dive and were saying how great it was to have seen it. So I wolfed down my lunch, grabbed my mask, snorkel and fins, and dived in for some surface interval snorkelling. Took us a few minutes but soon a few snorkellers spotted it and so we headed to the area above it. It was only a baby and was probably 2.5m long at the most, but it was my first ever experience of seeing one and I was well pleased with it. There were a couple of divers down there swimming next to it, and one of them persisted in touching its dorsal fin. He must have done it 3 or 4 times, and everyone at the surface was getting really annoyed with him as we didn’t want him to scare it off before the second dive of the day. I took my camera and took a few shots. They didn’t come out great due to the angle I was taking them from etc, so excuse the quality. But they are landmark photos for me, so I’ll include them in this entry.
Surface interval was coming to and end so I eagerly got my gear together, hoping to have an underwater encounter with this baby whale shark. Hoped to get some nice camera shots of it too. But it wasn’t to be and although some of the divers said they saw it during their second dive, our group wasn’t one of them. It’s a shame but that’s one of the things you realise with diving - you’re never guaranteed to see something, so when you do see it you should treasure the sighting. But I will say that I was much more impressed with Sail Rock with great vis. You could see the huge number of fish around the rock and it was a much more enjoyable dive and experience. If this had been my first dive in Thailand and not potentially my last, I’m sure my opinions on diving here would have been much different. I’ve experienced good and bad vis here though so I know the extent of how pleasurable a dive here can actually be.
I got home from that day of diving at about 5:30 and was very satisfied with the day. A first for me, and a couple of nice dives to boot. This morning I was helping out disassemble and reasemble regulators and BCDs with one of the Thai technicians in the workshop. That was part of my Mares Equipment Specialist course, and it was very interesting. I’ve not seen the inside of a reg 1st stage before, so it was nice to see how it all goes together. I also filled more Nitrox tanks and therefore completed my Gas Blender instructor course. Only got the DAN O2 provider and instructor course to do on Saturday and that’s me finished. I really can’t believe my time here in Thailand is almost over. After those first few days it’s gone so quickly, and I’ll miss the place and the people I’ve met here. Started the preparations for my return by sending a bunch of my PADI manuals that I won’t need back to Japan by surface mail. I sent 10kgs of stuff which should make my luggage a little lighter on the return flight and should mean I can take some pressies back for people in Japan.
Right - must be going now as I’m rambling on. Take care, and dive safely.
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