Day 239! Today was another morning of fun dives and hanging out with friends. While diving I found a very interesting fish that I had never seen before… it took me almost all day to find out what it was, but it turned out to be a fish that doesn’t make appearances around Thailand much!

For some reason, I woke up this morning alert and ready to go at 6am. I think I finally almost slept through the entire night and that got me feeling ready to take on a morning of diving.

Today I was leading Flavio on another fun diving excursion. Unfortunately for him, we were going to the same dive sites as yesterday. But at the same time, as I’ve told other fun divers, he was getting a nice opportunity to see how dive sites change from day to day.

For him, he does a lot of lake diving back home. So any dives in the ocean are interesting to him, which is nice to hear!

We started our morning off at Red Rock. As we approached the dive site, we could see a storm rolling in… but for the time being the ocean was nice and calm.

We dropped down onto the big rock that is the main part of the dive site and circled it twice this time. We saw a couple stingrays deep inside the crevice under the rock, not sure what types, and a pretty big grouper. We made our way over to the swim through again and still didn’t land right on it after leaving the rock.

But we did find it in the end and got to explore it once more. Even after a second time, I can really see why people like it. It’s neat being able to swim in a “cave” for so long but have multiple exits just in case you don’t want to go any further.

After the swim through, we made our way north. This time around I wanted to try and get closer to the boat for when we ended. So I went much further north than last time. As we dove around, a strange fish caught my eye… it was all red and looked like it was smooth with no scales. I had never seen it before and didn’t remember it from our fish book, so I made a point of getting it on camera to ask my diving friends.

There’s nothing particularly special about this fish… but the fact it looked so smooth and clay colored was very interesting to me.

After a nice and long 57 minute dive, we surfaced much closer to the boat than last time… but still a bit away. It was nice diving with someone where time was the factor to ascend rather than air consumption!

The wind and waves were starting to pick up and when we got back on the boat it started drizzling. Thankfully I had my rain coat because it was a bit chilly too!

I asked the divers on the boat if they had seen the red fish before, and none of them had. It wasn’t in our Koh Tao fish book either. So I asked a couple friends, who weren’t on the boat, that knew more about fish than I did.

I didn’t find out till later in the day, but it turns out it’s a Priacanthus Hamrur, also known as the lunar-tailed bigeye, goggle eye, or moontail bullseye. It’s a relative of the rabbit fish but it isn’t common around Thailand! It’s mainly found around Japan and other parts of Asia and the Mediterranean Sea.

Pretty cool if you ask me!

Our second dive was at HTMS Suphairin 313 and No Name Pinnacle… and when we showed up, the waves were going CRAZY. The boat was getting tossed around and going up really high before crashing back down onto the surface of the ocean. Our Cappy got us there safe and sound, but it was giving me the feeling that the visibility was going to be bad and the current would be strong.

Luckily, both assumptions were wrong. The surface swim to the shipwreck point was awful as we got smacked around by the waves. But once we started descending, it became a wonderful dive!

The visibility wasn’t the best but it wasn’t terrible and the current didn’t really affect us till we got to the pinnacle. We circled the bottom of the shipwreck and then headed to a pinnacle nearby that wasn’t the usual one, just to spice it up a little for Flavio. We then made our way around the wreck a bit more before heading to No Name.

Here the swell of the waves started to mess with the dive. Around the 10m mark, you could feel the waves pushing us around. Not just in one direction but up and a round a bit too.

Outside of that it was a very nice dive and I’m very glad the waves didn’t affect the dive more.

I believe Flavio has two more days of diving with me before he leaves. So there’ll be plenty of more dives with him to come.

The boat took a little longer than usual to get back to the pier because of the waves. But once we got back, I helped clean up gear, showered, and met up with my friend Chelsea for lunch at Mama Tams.

When I walked in they asked me, “mango shake no sugar and deep fried chicken on rice?” It’s a really nice feeling to be a local! And also very sweet that they care enough to remember!

After lunch, it was time for a much needed nap. When I woke up, I had no plans and felt inspired to get my next tattoo. I’ve been wanting to commemorate the day I saw my first whale shark, so my next tattoo was that, an abstract version of a whale shark! It also compliments the waves I have on the opposite side of my foot.

I went back to the tattoo artist that did my knee and they were happy to see me and their art again. He did a great job again, but this time I found the design online a while ago and just have been waiting for the time to go.

I got a bamboo tattoo this time so I can go diving with no worries! After getting my turtle tattoo, I’ve seen so many while diving… maybe this one will bring some good luck as well.

My friend Chelsea came to the tattoo parlor to hang out and when I finished we met up with Sina and Tom at a mini golf place on the island. If I wasn’t busy prior, I would’ve of course joined in on the fun and dominated (maybe…) but instead we just watched, heckled, and laughed along when the holes got the best of them.

With their mini golf game, they got a free scoop of icecream from a place nearby… turns out this place had two bowling lanes, a movie theater, pool, soccer pool, and a couple of other bar games. It felt like something out of Kansas City! I’m not sure how I never knew of this place but we’re planning on going back to spend an evening there soon!

After that, we made our way back to Taco Shack and hung out until dinner time. We then went to a restaurant none of us had been to, a noodle shop down the road.

I had seen this restaurant the other day and was excited to have a bowl of noodle soup… but it was only pork. So I ended up getting a Tom Kha, chicken coconut soup. It was very tasty, but I’ll need to get my noodle soup fix soon.

We all went our separate ways after that and I went home for an early nights sleep. I have a double boat tomorrow! We’ll hopefully be fun diving at Chumphon Pinnacle and then I’ll have a refresher with one of my friends I’ve made recently at Taco Shack!

– Elie