Ko Phi Phi Ley island, Thailand.

I was filled with anti­cip­a­tion for our two dives at Ko Phi Phi Ley because they were our first dives that were not part of our scuba train­ing and also our first dives not in the waters around the Thai island of Ko Tao.

The atmo­sphere was com­pletely dif­fer­ent from Ban’s Diving School. It was relaxed and calm. None of the boat crew or our two dive masters did any­thing very fast. They were truly living life at island pace.

As I spat in my mask one last time before pre­par­ing to go down for our second dive, our dive master asked me, “So, what do you want to see?”

“Um......I’d love to see a giant moray.”

“And have you seen a string ray?” she asked.

“No, never. It’d be fant­astic to see a Lion Fish also.” I replied, think­ing to myself that I must be asking for the world wanting to see all three of those creatures in one dive.

“Ok. I’ll see what I can do,” she smiled and gave me the “Okay” signal before the “Let’s go down” signal.

Chris pre­par­ing his scuba gear for his 10^th dive, although Princess is the last word I’d use to describe Chris. Hee, hee.

Once we got down we had about 15 meters vis­ib­il­ity. It was the best vis­ib­il­ity Chris and I had ever had because unfor­tu­nately while we were learn­ing in Ko Tao they were exper­i­en­cing a bad month for vis­ib­il­ity. I counted my breath, 3 seconds in and 5 out. I tried to relax all the muscles in my body. I tried to relax about all the things that can make you nervous under the water and have you con­stantly check­ing your gauges.

I looked at the fish swim­ming all around me, the school above who could only be seen as varying degrees and shades of grey silhouette’s.

“I am a fish. I belong here,” I thought to myself. I laughed a little at myself and smiled at how won­der­ful this dive was.

In the water you can spot one of the dive masters with a begin­ner diver. They were part of the group we went scuba diving with here at Ko Phi Phi Ley, the island where Leo filmed, “The Beach”.

We slowly swam above a sandy patch and hiding in a lonely piece of coral was a box fish! If you’ve never seen one before or never heard of one they are def­in­itely worth check­ing out.  Their tiny fins are simply unable to control the dir­ec­tion of their body against even the slight­est current. I suppose being shaped like a box doesn’t help their aero­dy­namic ability either.

Continuing above the sand I saw our dive master stop. I didn’t see a single thing but low and behold with her point­ing stick she dir­ec­ted our atten­tion to a stin­gray.  Upon seeing it I took a deep breath to ensure my some­what incon­sist­ent buoy­ancy didn’t send me down­ward on top of it. After all they contain a poison in their tail that they will whip over their bodies to stab poten­tial threats. Many of you may recall the “Crocodile Hunter” dieing when a Bull stin­gray stabbed him through the chest.

We swam on and spotted another ray. I looked at my air. 60 bar. I didn’t have much time and that meant Chris had even less. Our dive master was motion­ing to us again.

“Wow,” I thought. She sure is amazing at finding the animals.

I swam closer and stick­ing it’s head out about 1.5 feet was a Giant Moray. Awesome!

And finally the fish I’ve liked since learn­ing about it in Grade 6, the Lion Fish. I ima­gined it being around 5 inches in dia­meter but the ones we saw were only about 3 inches. What beauty.

I sur­faced happy and content, eager to do diving again. Hopefully we’ll find a good deal in Vietnam. We’re heading there on August 15 via a 17 hour bus ride. I hope to dive at Nha Trang, but with such a tight sched­ule it might not be possible.

After our dive while we relaxed on the boat with hot cups of tea, another boat load of divers arrived. Before their boat came to a com­plete stop they started bar­rel­ing off the back.