Phi Phi - Day 2

Today we did four dives: one at Ko Bida Nai, two at Phi Phi Ley, and the last one at Gareng Heng reef.  A number of the students (and I) have ear equalization issues, so the number of us diving seems to be dwindling.  I hope this will resolve soon.  Our goal at this point is just to get the kids to have more experience in the water and develop better buoyancy skills.  We don't want them crashing into the reef when we begin working on the nursery and planting corals.

Here are Luke, Moose, Max, and Colin on the way out to our first of four dive sites today.

Instructor Dani giving her briefing to Emily, Annie, Blaire, and Rebecca.

Savannah and Jaime taking a selfie, with Abby photobombing.

Left and...

...right sides of the aft seating area.

Instructor Nuria giving a briefing.

In between dives, you need a surface interval to allow the nitrogen to dissipate from your system, so we took advantage of the time by jumping off the upper deck.  I'm not sure who some of them are, but here are a few photos...

Katie.

Alyssa and Jaime?

Luke.

Blaire?

Anna.

Rebecca.

Franny doing some sort of girly thing to Abby's hair.

Lunchtime on the boat.  Annie with her yellow curry chicken with sweet & sour vegetables.

Savannah and Jaime.

This cave is close to Viking Cave on Phi Phi Ley.  What beautiful scenery with the limestone islands and blue water.  What a great place to learn!

I think these are Savannah and Alyssa.

I think this is Jaime, Savannah, and Alyssa conferring.   Being underwater and not being able to talk can't even stop them...

Two-spot snappers.

Yellowfin goatfish.

Instructor Nuria with Alex.

A sea cucumber.  We saw lots of these.

Alyssa.

More two-spot snappers.

and more two-spot snappers.

Barrel sponge with foliose and mushroom corals.

Various hard corals with sea anemones.

A crown-of-thorns starfish.  These are very dettimental to reefs because they graze on coral polyps, which kills the coral.  Outbreaks of these can wipe out large areas of a reef.

Here's a nice coral head with tons of damsel fish and a moray eel waiting patiently for a damsel to get close enough.

Down near the bottom are black tip reef sharks.