A busy Christmas

A busy Christmas

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I know I did. The majority of the time was spent on the boat.

* It's crazy how many people wants to dive during this period.

The boat has been full for the couple of days and it looks like it’ll  be the same rate for some weeks

ahead. Which is just fine but once in a while you need a day off. Hopefully very soon.

On the 24th and 25th we were diving with Christmas hats and sang merry Christmas on the boat.

Great Christmas spirit.

On the 24th it was like a little Christmas party at the beach, great fun.

So we had booked a restaurant for the 25th. But something had gone wrong with the booking so

we had a very good dinner at the 26th instead at Yang (best restaurant on the island).

We also gave away our secret santa present. I got a very comfortable towel and some candles.

The best day during Christmas I think was our Christmas movie night on the 25th.

Most of the divers where at Steve and Ilis place and watched Elf. I think that was one of the best

evening during Christmas.

I just found out that I booked my Visa run to Singapore on a weekend….

which means that the embassy is closed. I will have to reschedule the flights and hope that

is not going to be to expensive.

Christmas is close

Christmas is close!

When you’re living down in a tropical country with sun, blue water and beaches.It’s very important not forget the christmas feeling. So that’s why I have been trying to the best of the situation, like to decorate and play christmas music at my place. Just to spread the christmas mood in Thailand.

You can easily find Christmas decorations down here but a christmas tree will be more challenging to get your hands on. My neighbour brought me a plant two weeks ago and I got some Christmas balls from Mel. And I created my own Christmas tree, not the same, I know. I miss the smell from a proper Christmas tree, how it fills the air in the house with the smell of Christmas. But it's still looks pretty. I've also improvised a advent candleholder of singha sparkling water bottles. So every sunday it is a new candle I can light up, just one left now.

The Christmas plans we have is that first we will get some christmas feeling by watching die hard together. On christmas eve The Bar in Kantiang have a Christmas party at the beach. Christmas day we will first heading out on a dive day, I have bought a christmas hat that I’ll use underwater. Last Christmas dive I saw my first Manta. We will see what santa will bring me this year. On the evening we will all eat at Yang and deliver our Secret santa presents.

Christmas is the only time of the season I sometimes wish I was home to celebrate it with my family. This is my second year I will miss Christmas at home. But I know I also have my friends down here and we all together create a lovely Christmas.

Chinese SWAT team

Chinese SWAT team

The week has been mostly about diving. The peak season is starting and you starting to feel it. I'm not tired or anything but sometimes you need a “dry day” and not dive to just rest and clear your body from nitrogen.

I had one group with me that was diving for two days. They couldn't English that well so for my dive briefings I had to use sign language. It actually went very well and luckily they were good divers already. One of the guy was looking very funny underwater, he was diving with this military helmet… I don't know why but they told me it was because of fashion. The helmet was black with a Chinese flag on the right side and on the back it said SWAT. I thought it was funny.

If you think Chinese people take as many photos underwater as on the surface, you think just right; photos and selfies was taken constantly. We saw a Turtle and this SWAT guy was laying down like a sniper on the sand, going for his kill. Matt swam by and saw everything and we just laughed under the water. But they was very sweet people, they offered me to try som Chinese snacks, which was more like a sugar taste beef Jerky. I really liked one snack that was made of smoked jak meat.

They also had this machines that translated when they were talking Chinese.

I've been eating at Ili and Steves house for some days. We have been eating hot pot. It's boiling water and you throw in what you would like to have, meat vegetables and spices. Super good.

Tomorrow it´s finally time for my day of. The time would be spend om some yoga in the morning with Asha and then I will prepare as good as I can for Christmas in my tropical bungalow

Steve bought me some flipflops and someone helped me with the instructions to --

Here comes the sun

During the previous week the weather has been awful; no boat and loads of rain... But now it seems like the wind has turned and you can once more feel the sun warming up your body.

The boat is going out again but since the weather has been so bad the dive sites has very low visibility because the currents bring up a lot of particles and nutrition to the reef from the depth and also sand is stirred up from the bottom. It's good for the reef but not so good for us divers that want to see as much as we can.

The week ahead is going to be very busy. Big groups of divers will come and dive with us for a couple of days. Hopefully the visibility is getting back to normal so that we may have the best conditions.

Today I'm having a day that’s needed, I guess. It's also good to relax a bit before the big groups arrive. So yesterday we went to my favorite “night club” tree house.

It's a big wooden porch with a big dance floor and relax area up in the trees. On wednesdays it's always a good live band that plays sing-along-songs. Just my kind of music. One thing I had forgot was that you never get your flip flops back from that place. You take them of before you enter and everyone's who leaves just take a pair of shoes. The result was that no flip flops was left when I went out from tree house, so need to by new ones as soon as possible ….

On december 6th, a hundred years ago, Finland separated from Russia, declaring themselves independent, which meant that many people from the Raya dive shop was out partying as well. Nice to see them on their spare time in contrast to just on the boat, working. Congratulations Finland and thanks for a awesome night.

Storm & addiction

Storm & addiction

Me and an octopus
Thanks Pavel for the Photo

During these few days it has been bad weather. The waves are big and haven't seen the sun for over three days. It should be like this for two more days and no boats are going out on the sea due to the weather. I haven’t been doing too much. Fixed my shower, read and watched some movies.

This is a picture that shows what the weather looks like. As you can see the table looks like a rainbow and that’s never good. So will be out of the water for some time now which is good to heal my mosquito bites.

The only thing you realize is that you are really addicted to diving. Like any addiction I just feel that I want to dive, the body is screaming for it. But it’s of course safest to stay home. Hard to know what to do during a whole day of rain.

What i’ve been doing is catching up with a really good documentary, Blue Planet II. It have eased my desire a little bit. The concurrent technology have given the film team access to environments under the water surface you wouldn’t believe It's breathtaking. If you have time I would really recommend the Blue planet II.

Here is the trailer (Radio Head is doing the soundtrack)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_38JDGnr0vA

Dreamfilm is a good site where you can watch every episodes in HD.

Rainy Days.... Why not get a haircut and eat some unhealthy breakfast

Tomorrow I will rent a car and head for Krabi to extend my visa so I can stay 30 more days. Maybe something adventure will turn up , I will keep you posted

Me, Sandra, Joy and Matt, On our way to Krabi

We also went to the big mal "Tesco" where we meet Eric 

Done!! after this road trip the extension of the Visa is confirmed

The Chef & The divers

The chef & The divers

Weather report: Rainy, windy and a bit cold for being Thailand. It has not been to much people going out with the boat. Which is perfect when Marcus arrived. Marcus and I worked at Västerås Golf club this summer. Marcus always told me that he was going to visit me and he did. So fun to get down a person who I been get to know and worked with the whole summer. We have become very good friends and I guess that we got even stronger band after this time with each other.
Marcus is actually a diver and I did the refresher with him. Marcus had not dive for a while and then it´s perfect to repeat some skills and knowledge.

After that he wanted to cook some dinner for the divers. Me and Marcus went to Lanta Market (Sweden's ICA) and bought most of the ingredients he needed, we also went for the Thai market to buy shrimp and a whole fish. That night Marcus did the most amazing “Thai taco night” It is nice how a good chef can create such a good meal from a simple and small thai kitchen. It went so quick and the food was done and everybody was enjoying the meal so much.

That night we decided to go to “Yang” the best restaurant on the island. I think Marcus really appreciated that we took him there, he wanted to try everything and that's what we did. You never get disappointed at Yangs, the people there are so good and the food is amazing. You also saw that on the “ Swedish chef´s” face when he was eating every bite. I recommend everyone who visit me in Koh Lanta to try Yangs out .

Since it been so rainy I have spent much time at home cleaning and also manage to get a guitar. Finally I can start playing and it working as a meditative way for me, to get my feelings out in song and music. I also pick up some reading and Ili and Steve invited us for some monopoly card game. I didn't win… But it was a great time

DSD & BBQ

Discover Scuba & BBQ

Koh Lanta is starting to become hot and sunny days are ahead. I’m very happy to be on the boat during this time to get some ocean breeze and diving sessions in to cool me down instead of being under the warm sun in the shop.

My friends from back home has now left but they really enjoyed Lanta, at least that’s what they told me…

They had never dived before and had little time to finish a whole course so they took the quickest alternative in order to get out to the tropical water. They attended the course “Discover scuba diving”. It lasted two days. It consists of one hour in the pool to learn some easy moves and the following day out in the blue water they go. Martin was more of a snorkel guy and he really liked what he saw. After he had his head under surface for a few minutes he looks up at me and says “Oscar this is so awesome, so many fish and variety of colors!” Eddie and Henrik was diving and I saw them from the surface on their first time under water. Eddie was doing some kind of “dog swim” and Henrik was a little bit too “floaty” – hilarious to see. I followed them the second dive and they were much better. Third dive me and Eddie was diving on our own and it was like diving with an already certified diver. Amazing how quick some people learn. All of them were so happy to see what I see every day. It makes me happy to show people this amazing world (that shouldn't be taken for granted) and to make them smile!

Some evenings, I’ve been invited to some nice BBQ parties. People around here like to host BBQ nights at their house and let friends gather. It´s birthdays, holidays or just a regular day when someone organize a big cook up. I really like when many friends are together. We have each other and we're really taking care of one another.

the boats you see in the background is Thai navy ships because the princess was visiting Koh Lanta  

Corals and Friends

Corals and friends

Last time I told you I was going to see a talk about coral conservation, this is my review of it:

How was the coral propagation presentation? It was very interesting and mind blowing learning about what we actually can do for our coral reefs. They guy who held the presentation knows so much about corals. He’s been traveling the world trying to teach people his way of planting corals. He has invented a natural glue which activates with salt water and keep the coral on the the rock until the coral has grown so much that it can survive by itself.

So Ocean Quest (the company) has teach people around the world to plant new corals without too much effort or money. The coral reefs that has been around for billions of years start to bleach, also dynamite fishing and trolling fishing destroys the reefs and the complex ecosystem. In the ocean and specially around reefs the organisms lives in symbiosis, which means that the organisms help each other to clean get food etc. If something gets sick or dies, it's very likely that the system collapses. If our corals die, the beautiful colors, life and incredible marine animals will just be a weak memory.

However I really appreciate people who try to do something about it.

Go in and check out ocean quest website or sea Shepherd to learn more about their work:

http://www.oceanquest.global

http://www.seashepherd.org

Some mornings while we're not diving we do some Yoga in the morning and then the most of us goes for breakfast together. It´s so nice to start your day with a Yoga session or on the other day an awesome dive.

Three friends from Sweden arrived today so I will show them around the island today on my day off!!

Until next time xx

Spotting my First Whale Shark

Spotting a Whale shark

I have finally witnessed one of the oceans most beautiful creatures. People who have dived a lot more than I, haven't seen it yet. But I, with approximately 230 dives, finally saw it. I was diving in Koh Haa with four other people and when I was heading up against the safety stop at five o’clock, I looked up and saw this huge whale shark cruising by. I just looked at it for a few seconds before calling everyone else around me, and soon everyone around had seen it. It's rare to see them around but at the moment it seems to be something in particular that the whales like around Koh Haa.

When I got on the boat again it turned out that we were the only group from Angry Bird (the boat) who had seen it. I saw it swimming away against island number five, so I told the boatmaster to do the next dive around the caves – it was a bet but it turned out to be just right.

After 30 minutes into the dive the whale shark was passing by us again. And now everyone saw it and we were just cheering and laughing the whole day after that.

The next day we went for Koh Haa again and I told my group that I saw a whale shark the other day and so we all had our hopes up. Luckily a whale shark visited us again on the second dive! This one was even bigger – around 8 meters (the one the day before was about 3-4). So lucky to see whale shark two days in a row!

Lucy, the photographer, took some nice pictures:

Instagram: @lantalucy

I will dive again at Koh Haa again tomorrow. I don't expect anything better, but we will see and keep our fingers crossed.

Later this evening I will listen to this coral conservation talk on a resort on the island. These guys are actually planting corals around Koh Lanta and I think that it's very interesting. I hope to learn from it and in the future hopefully help them to plant some corals. I'm planning to tell you guys some facts about corals in the next post. See you later!