similan islands dive trip

I think my most favorite part of the trip to Thailand was diving in the Similan Islands. We booked a trip with Wicked Diving out of Khao Lak. Jared, Jane, Anneka and I completed our dive certification while on the 3-day live aboard. Lance was already certified, so he was in a separate group. The water was so clear here. We saw a lot of neat fish and eels, rays, turtles, sea cucumbers, coral, slugs...I have a video, if you're ever interested in watching it. It would probably be boring for someone else, though.

I get really bad motion sickness and so I was worried about being on a boat for 3 days. I took medicine, but the 4-hour ride out there was really, really rough. I spent most of the time throwing up over the side of the boat. It hurt. Once we got to the islands, I didn't have any problems. Phew. We dove a total of nine times and by the last day, I was really feeling comfortable with everything. It takes a little getting used to, but I wasn't ever scared, which was one thing I worried about before.

The dive crew was fun, we were on the boat for Thanksgiving and one of them dressed up as a "turkey" by using some medical gloves and cotton balls. I didn't have my camera when he did it, but it was pretty funny. Marcel was our instructor and he must have a lot of patience to deal with people like us all the time. This was their initiation for one of the other instructors to complete his certification.Can you believe how blue the water was out there? It was so beautiful.

This was a sunrise one of the mornings, we did have to get up at 645 each morning because we had really full days.

Part of our group. There were 6 other divers besides us.Lance getting ready for a dive.Me climbing out of the water, that was the toughest part, the equipment was so heavy.We had a small amount of time to explore one of the islands. It had a great beach.Our turtle friend that greeted us when we arrived.

When we returned from the dive trip, we had gotten so used to being on the rocking boat, that it seemed like everything was moving. We couldn't make sudden movements, or we would get dizzy. And then when we went to bed, it felt like the boat was still rocking, it was weird. It went away by the next day, luckily.