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