I had been going through a bit of a dry spell photography locally - no inspiration and nothing innovative in my work. So I was looking forward to a few days of diving new sites and getting new looks at things, and also seeing what things were like on the opposite side of the Andaman Sea. I also decided to focus primarily on wide-angle stuff, and so packed the Tokina 10-17 and the Sigma 17-70 as a backup/general lens. The macro stuff stayed behind.
After spending a couple of days in Bangkok picking up some spare dive gear and a couple of days of lounging on beach chairs at the Marriott in Phuket, we were picked up by Patrick, the owner of Siam Adventure Divers and transferred to the boat. After a short and to-the-point briefing by Rick, Clive & Jeff, the 3 instructors on the boat, we were off. We were assigned to a group with 2 other experienced divers, which was fine by us. There were no dives scheduled for the evening, so I took the opportunity to set up my camera gear and catch up on Season 2 of "24" (Kim Bauer needs to die. Seriously).
Day 1 - 3 dives in the Similans. The water at this time of the year was starting to turn green due to plankton. Funnily, even though we are based a scant few hundred kilometers on the other side of the Andaman Sea, our own waters are still blue. Go figure. The dives on this day were nice - lots of large rock formations (something which I found to be a unique feature of this area - and also something very different from what we get). For wideangle, there really wasnt a whole lot of photo opportunities except gorgonians and rocks. We did have a nice encounter with a turtle on one dive - and while we were spending time shooting it, we missed a leopard shark that came very close to the other divers in the group.
Day 2 - 4 more dives in the Similans, including Elephant Head Rock and Koh Bon. Now the diving was starting to pick up. The underwater pinnacles were getting bigger, the fishlife was increasing and there were more interesting photo ops. There was a beautiful dive on Elephant Head Rock, which ended up being a bit of a struggle for me and my housing due to the current: normally, I wear long Cressi fins which work really well in a current. This time, I was diving in "borrowed gear" and between the additional drag of a traditional BCD instead of my usual BP/wings, and so-called high-tech fins which sucked at propulsion, I was working harder than a sweatshop laborer trying to meet his sneaker quota. There was a very large anglerfish on this reef, which took one look at me hanging on to a rock and my 8" dome port sneaking closer, and resolutely turned the other way. So a bit of a bitter-sweet dive for me: great rock formations & swim-throughs but less than optimal shots and more of a workout than my lazy ass wanted. And there was more: as I was doing my safety stop and contemplating anglerfishicide, my wife pointed into the blue.. and behold, a large manta was swooping in towards us. We were the closest to it, and it looked as if it was coming close. However, just as I starting getting my camera ready, some yobo decided to charge towards it, sticking out his P&S and clicking away like mad. The manta immediately banked and was gone. Yup. Definitely bitter-sweet. Highlights of the day were some lionfish swimming in the open, a habituated turtle porn-starring in the hopes of getting food (I literally had to keep swimming out of his way, as he kept banging into my dome port) & the afore-mentioned hard-to-photograph anglerfish.
Day 3 - 3 dives again. Pritha was feeling a little unwell and decided to skip the early AM dive. A shame, because as our group was swimming along at 25m or so, I noticed a pair of leopard sharks cavorting below me. Dropping down to get in place, I realized that I was at almost 50m. No matter- the sharks were in some kind of a mating dance, and oblivious to my presence, so I set up shop a foot or so away from them and started shooting, changing positions only when a careless tail whacked me in the head. Far to soon, I had to come up or I wouldnt have had enough air to complete my deco. Only while reviewing my images did I realize that thanks to a little more narcosis than usual, I had gotten a few shots with a strobe in the bleeding corner of the frame. Still, I had left myself room to crop later and so ended up with quite a few keepers from this dive. Pritha was very jealous!
Day 4 - 2 dives planned for the day at Richeleu Rock. There were 2 nice seahorses on display as well as a ghost pipefish. I had a nice look at them, but didnt bother shooting them with the fisheye. I did watch a particularly clueless diver come very close to ramming headfirst into a lionfish while trying to photograph the seahorses, so oblivious she was to her surroundings. Of course, this was same diver who had, atleast twice on this trip so far, completely wreck coral heads with her fins. Both times, I was too late in getting to her and I had discreetly brought this up with the dive guides of the boat as well. But no avail. People should really need to meet some kind of buoyancy requirements before being allowed to use a camera!
And all too soon, it was over. We were dropped off and transferred back to Phuket, and next day, it was time to fly back home.
Overall, it was a very enjoyable trip. The boat was well-run, groups were well-managed and we got our diving freedom. The diving platform in the back was reasonably spacious and they had large rinse tanks for camera gear. Food was wholesome, tasty and mostly Thai - which was great. We had a bit of a problem with the boat's aircon on the first couple of days, but they brought in an aircon technician to fix it midway through the cruise - after that, it was nice and cold in the rooms.
The rooms themselves were ok. Not very large, but reasonable-sized beds and adequate storage space for our stuff (we pack light). The bathrooms were typically liveaboard fare - small and efficient. Our room didnt have a sink, however - which would have been nice, but wasn't really the end of the world one way or the other. For a mid-range boat, the rooms were just fine.
The 3 dive guides were very professional and thorough with their briefings, and the boat was always on hand to pick us up. From a photography point of view, I'd probably have preferred to do repeat dives on the same sites (especially Elephant Head Rock), but given that this was a general liveaboard and not a specialized photo one, that is just a thought and not a complaint or anything.
I came back from that trip with my batteries recharged and am hitting our local reefs with a gusto again. Was very satisfied with everything aboard the M/V Jazz and would definitely go out with them again.
Vandit
