"Nemo bit me!" (Feb. 24/09 - Koh Lanta, Thailand)

Our buddy Tony at home has a friend who works at a dive shop here on Koh Lanta, so we tracked him down and signed up for a day of diving - afterall, it's what we do best! We headed over to the Koh Phi Phi chain of islands, which lie in the Andaman Sea about half way between Koh Lanta and Phuket. The southernmost, Koh Bida Nok, is a small towering limestone island with no beaches or even vegetation thanks to its harsh geometry. A trio of dolphins swam near the boat as we headed out, which caused an abundance of extra commotion when someone got a little too excited and shouted "WHALE SHARK!!!". We jumped in at the north end and followed the east side of the island around, which was mostly a steep wall that bottomed out on sand around 60-90 feet. Right away, we found an octopus half hiding in a crack and a beautiful peacock mantis shrimp fully out in the open. Lots of eels (including a tiny white-eyed moray swimming out in the open), huge orange sea fans, some beautiful nudibranchs, anemonefish, huge scallops, and some pretty soft corals and sea whips. A particulary territorial anemonefish (Nemo!) came up in my face when I was actually nowhere near his home-sweet-anemone-home, and when I kept on swimming, he actually went around behind me and bit my leg! It was a very pretty dive, nice and relaxed, with enough to see that we weren't the least bit disappointed after being spoiled in the Similans!

Dive two was off the east side of Koh Bida Nai, just a few hundred metres off Koh Bida Nok. More of the "usual" critters, plus a passing black-tipped reef shark and a cruising turtle that almost ran me over en route to his lunch spot at a particular coral head. Morays poked their heads out of holes, grouper hung out at cleaning stations, and multiple schools of various fish swirled in the shallows. So pretty!

We climbed back aboard and cruised north to Koh Phi Phi Leh, a bigger island with vertical cliffs of limestone that are broken only in one spot, called Maya Bay, where the movie "The Beach" was filmed a few years ago. The beach was gorgeous, but overrun with tour boats taking people on day trips to see the famous beach. A couple turtles paddled around in the turquoise water at the base of the massive cliffs, and boats full of snorkellers bobbed in the water over the area we were about to jump in. This was Palong Wall, a shallow sloping reef where reef sharks tend to hang out in the sand. It was a nice easy third dive of the day, above 30 feet depth and with just enough current going with us that we didn't even have to swim! Pufferfish of all different colours and sizes seemed to be everywhere, along with a huge variety of reef fish and hard corals. A pair of cuttlefish put on a colour-changing show for us, and then we started to see the sharks. A solitary black-tipped reef shark cruised by in front of us, carrying a couple hitchhiking remoras. Then another one, then three togther, all relatively small (maybe 3 to 5 feet long?), but eventually there were so many that we didn't bother pointing them out to eachother! I counted 13 sharks in total, though it could have been the same five or six swimming by a couple times. Nudibranchs, anemonefish, a juvenile harlequin oriental sweetlips, and even a turtle right at the end. The sand tapered off and gave way to a steep wall and huge boulders that had fallen from the cliffs above. Covered in soft corals and fish, it made for a beautiful end to the dive.

On the way back to Koh Lanta, we motored past Koh Phi Phi Don, the main touristy island whose west bewaches were descimated by the tsunami. The two hour sail back was smooth and relaxing, with lots of time to look over photos, reach, and chat - pretty much making for a perfect day!