Cliffs and underwater caverns

Preparing to Dive
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We started this morning with another wonderous dive at the uninhabited Ko Haa islands.  Waking in the morning to see the islands full glory above the water.  Cliffs streatching hundreds of feet overhead viewed from the ships top deck.

On this morning I was awakened with a rousing rendition on Metalica - Master of Puppets, right at the point - "Obey your Master, Master!!"  Nearly hit my head on the bunk above in startled awakening.  Was all good natured fun.

pretty much everything is something you don't want to touch or be bitten or stung by, including the coral itself.

Connecting cave passage
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We headed into the deep blue, towards the submerged cliff face, and into some huge underwater caverns 100ft or more across.  In the far back, a connecting passage allowed you to pass in through one cavern, and out through another.  When back in the caverns, you eyes adjusted to the darkness, and it was an inspiring site gazing back out at the blue light filtering into the caves.  Then we explored the surrounding reef seeing many highly poisonous stone fish and lion fish, with deadly stripped sea snakes periodically winding their way up the surface for air.  In fact pretty much everything is something you don't want to touch or be bitten or stung by, including the coral itself.

Incredible butterfly like lion fish
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Then up for a rinse and some more substantial breakfast as the boat headed to Bida Nok, then Pida Nai for more great diving - wrapping up the day at Koh Doc Mai for another night dive.  Hard to remember all the things we saw from my first siting of a Leapard Shark (not even seen a drawing of one of those before), to countless Morea eels, Wrasses, Nudebranks, and so on.  One group saw a Manta Ray up close enough to touch.

In between diving during the day, the captain stopped the boat at Phi Phi, and we took the dingy over to the island to walk around and explore the famous double apposing beaches viewing the massive shear cliffs and caves.  Konrad told how the island was badly trashed by the Tsunami, and may never be the same again.  Over 800 people died as wave came from both sides on the opposing beaches.  Roberts shop had been completely whiped away, yet he had most of his equipment rented out, and so didn't loose everything (since the dive boats out at the time were unaffected).  Konrad told of seeing the wave on Kamala where we were staying and rushing to an upper floor building to escape water.  There was still debris sitting around parts of Phi Phi.  Still a very picturesque place to be.

Getting ready to dive
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Finally we headed back towards Phuket for a last night in Chalong bay.