Ornate ghost pipe fish on my third dive. Beginners luck!

 

My instructor turned out to be Thai, Champ. I think the first experiences of diving depend a lot on who is your instructor or the dive master in each dive. In the case of Champ, he is one of those people with the ability to find and show you incredible things, which in my case motivated me to continue diving. At that moment I was not aware of the things he showed me. Today I check my logbook and when I read that in my third dive we saw an “ornate ghost pipe fish” and in the fourth a yellow “frog fish”, I simply cannot believe it. Thanks Champ!

We did the dives in the area of ​​Bida Nok, Bida Noi and Maya Bay, all close to the island of Phiphi Lee (where is the beach of “The Beach”, film by Dani Boyle with Leonardo Di Caprio). From what I remember, Bida Nok and Bida Noi are two huge pinnacles that surface some meters over the sea, like fungi. Despite being very visited they have a lot of life. The other places around Maya Bay did not seem so good.

Bida Nok

Finally, I decided to do five more dives to get my Advanced certificate, which was very useful for my next dives

At Phuket Airport, after picking up the luggage and before leaving to the arrival area there is a counter where you can buy the ferry ticket. It costs the same as in the port. The time between the airport and the pier from where the ferry leaves is 45 min to 1 hour depending on traffic. The ferry then takes 2 hours to get to Phiphi Don.