Thankfully, there really was a 0700 bus and it dropped us off at the dive shop at 0735. We were relieved when we met the dive master, who is fluent in English. The dive master is an interesting character. He is chain smoker with a very droll sense of humor. Christi told him she needed 11 kilos (24 pounds) of weight due her very buoyant wet suit (5mm). As every single dive master does, he told her she didn’t know what she was talking about and refused to give her so much weight. They compromised at 10 kilos. We were apparently misinformed on time, because the other 4 people going out with us, a French family, showed up almost an hour later.

The crew loaded all the gear up on the boat and we hopped in. We were incredibly disappointed when the dive master didn’t join us. We were with a non-English speaking dive leader. It is a small wooden boat, similar in construction to the longtail we had taken to the restaurant in Phuket. The engine is a one cylinder with a hand crank starter.

The first dive site we went to is called Elephant Beach. It was not one of the sites we requested, so we were disappointed about that. The crew pulled close to shore and dropped anchor. The water was choppy and rough here. We jumped into chest deep water to get into our gear, which is really nice. The weight belt they gave Christi looked and felt light. She asked three times if it was 10 kilos and all three times they said yes. The group swam to where is was deeper and we let the air out of our BC’s. Christi watched from the surface as everyone else sank. The leader turned and began to swam off and it was difficult to get his attention to let him know Christi was having a problem. She swam back to the boat to get more weights. It turned out she only had 6 kilos. They only wanted to give her one more kilo. She demanded 11 kilos total over and over and they finally loaded on the weight. Several others asked for more weight, as well.

The second descent attempt was successful. There is a lot of coral, but it is all the smooth, coral that looks like big boulders, with very few other types of corals around. It looks like a storm probably came through and wiped out all of the delicate corals because we saw a lot of dead staghorn and mushroom corals. The few other types of coral we saw were small, like they were in the early stages of regeneration. The colors weren’t very interesting either, mostly browns, with just a few yellows and purples and one blue one. There were lots and lots of neon lipped clams around, and quite a few very large ones. There were several sea cucumbers, both the variety that look like big black cucumbers and a variety that also looks like a light tan cucumber with dark brown spots. We also saw several of the variety that look like giant caterpillars. There were a few feather starfish, and one large but skinny blue starfish with 5 points. There were a lot of sea anemones, some quite large, and the clown fish inside are a deep red rather than the usual orange. The fish were mostly damselfish and cardinalfish in assorted colors. There were quite a few parrotfish around, many in very purple hues.

Visibility wasn’t all that great, maybe 20 feet (7 meters), so staying together as a group took concerted effort. When we were about halfway though our air supply, one of the French kids had a problem of some sort and the guide took him up, swimming the opposite direction from Christi and Mike. Christi and Mike were oblivious that the guide had left and had continued to swim forward. Eric swam to them to tell them to stop, but by the time he reached Christi and Mike, the guide was completely out of site. Eric went to the surface to look for the guide. No sign of him. Eric could see the boat. We were quite a ways from it. We waited and searched, but then Eric decided the best plan of action would be to swim directly to the boat. We had been drifting with the current all this time and needed to fight the current going back, which is opposite of what you are supposed to do on a dive.

We had been diving along the very edge of the reef. As we swam across the center of the reef in a straight line to the boat, we realized we were only in four (1.3 meters) of water. Christi could not stay underwater and swam back on the surface, fighting both the current and the surface chop. Needless to say, we had lots of air left when we got back to the boat. Christi asked for more weight for the next dive and found out she had only had 9.5 kilos and they had lied when they said it was 11. They added another two kilos, putting her at 11.5.

We waited for the rest of the group. The waves kept coming over the side of the boat, and the poor crew members were constantly having to bail. We were each given a bottle of water, bananas and some cookies with hydrogenated oil that Christi refused to eat. When the others returned we headed to the next site, where the water was much calmer. The younger of the French kids was seasick and hanging over the side of the boat the whole ride. Much to our horror, the staff threw all the trash, plastic containers and all, into the water.

The second dive site is called Aquarium, one of the sites we had requested, and was much better in every way. Visibility was the same, and we made more of a concerted effort to keep with the guide. Our biggest complaint is that he swam really fast. In diving, you want to swim slowly and get a good look at the coral and fish. You want to look in all the cracks and crevices, where some of the most fabulous sea creatures hide. We were swimming much too fast to get a really good look at the surroundings. And the guide didn’t look back often to make sure we were still there, so we really had to stay at his pace.

We saw a number of new fish we had never seen before. One type is called phantom banner fish and it looks like angelfish with a weird notched head. We saw a school of white fish that are probably a type of wrasse with odd yellow marks on their head, kind of similar to parrotfish marks. We saw another kind of new wrasse, called a checkerboard wrasse, with pink designs on their heads. We saw what we think is a spotted trunk fish, a black fish with white spots sort of similar to a puffer fish. We also saw what we think is a variety of anemone. It is shaped like an anemone, but a dark brown color with white piping all around it, and without all the little tentacles that make up the center of the anemone’s body. There were black clown fish hovering around it. We didn’t even know black clown fish existed. The most interesting new fish of all is one we couldn’t find in the fish book. It looks like two completely different species of fish fused together, the front half very spiny.

We also saw a lot of the usuals. There were spotted and striped grouper in several bright colors, including purple. No grouper in the more common brown tones, though. We saw several varieties of blennies, gobies, surgeonfish and butterfly fish. There were several schools of larger silver fish, including fusiliers, and tons and tons of schools of tiny fish. There were some unicorn fish, some Moorish idols, a lobster, and a seal faced puffer. We also saw a lot of spinecheek fish, which we have seen before at several other dive sites but we just learned its name. There was a single pincushion starfish in black. And, like at the Elephant Beach site, we also saw a lot of parrotfish, regular sea anemones with the red clown fish, and feather starfish.

There was also a lot of variety to the coral here, as well. Fan coral, brain coral, fire coral, elephant ear sponge, mushroom leather coral, table coral, and more types that we don’t know the names of. There isn’t a whole lot of color here, either, but there are a few bright pinks in addition to the occasional yellows, blues and purples. Christi is happy to report that she had no buoyancy issues at the end, like she normally does when diving with aluminum tanks. We guess it was just a matter of not having enough weight all those other times. We are also pleased to report that we didn’t see any sharks. Christi was nervous about Mike diving when the wounds from his motor scooter accident were still open, afraid they may attract a shark that would normally ignore us.

The crew dropped us off at Kosmos, as the dive master had instructed them. We took the French boy with us, because he was really sick and would have had a miserable ride back on the boat. We quickly showered and changed and then took the bus back to the dive shop to pay and deliver the boy to his parents. We actually beat the boat back. Our new Indian friend from yesterday came by to say hi. Yesterday we had been waiting for him to hit us up for money, but he didn’t. He gave us a ride to the jetty so we could look around town while waiting for the bus, and we offered him money and he said no. We had misjudged this guy. He was simply looking to be nice to us and make sure we had a good time on his island.

We caught the 1730 bus back to the boat, and once again, we arrived back just after 1800. We didn’t get yelled at for calling in late this time.