So, diving again. The day starts with this Butterflyfish, this might be the best photo of one I’ve taken so far, they are very camera shy and normally face away from you the moment you look at them

Scorpionfish

If this was painting I’d call it “Coral with green fish”

And this one “Yellow fish”

I wish I had a macro lens (well I do, but not for this camera and not for underwater use) to capture this in more detail

Looks like a bright orange Christmas tree to me

Coral Grouper

I need a second strobe, to get rid of that shadow

If you don’t pay attention for too long you can easily lose the group

What a clown this fish

Diving under arches

And in caves

This HUGE fish was at the entrance of the cave

Golden Puffer

It’s still pretty dark, which makes it hard to take decent photos of things outside of the strobe’s reach

Sea Krait (a snake)

Cleaner Fish cleaning the (I think) Snapper

That was the first dive, now it’s time for our surface interval and in 2 hours or so we can do the next dive

After every dive we always hang up our swimwear to dry and put on some dry clothing (but not in that order)

Koh Haa

Tentacles of the Sea Cucumber’s mouth

Yellow boxfish

Lots of Christmas Tree Worms in the foreground, a bunch of divers in the background

Found him!

Big fan coral, I tried to get the fan coral itself lit so that it would contrast nicely with the dark blue background, this is the best I could do

Nudibranch

Close up of those things, their surface isn’t smooth, they have lines on them, like fingerprints

We need to ascend through this ‘chimney’

And that’s where you come out again (the bright light, that’s the torch of the diver that was behind me)

End of the second dive. Back on the boat again. It always amazes me how trees can grow on a surface like these rocks at Koh Haa

Third dive, more Nemos

Amazing that the current doesn’t rip the coral away from the rock

Puffer, with their cute huge eyes

I think these are Common Bluestripe Snappers

Damn, even an easily recognizable fish like this I just can’t seem to Google! I will therefore refer to it as “White Striped Behind The Eye Brown Fish With A White Tail”

Yellow Tail Snapper?

Lionfish

On our way north (we’re heading to the Similan Islands) we make another dive (and will spend the night) at the Phi Phi Islands

Koh Phi Phi Lee on the left, Koh Phi Phi Don on the right

Fourth dive, at some wreck, the visibility isn’t great

As you can see

The rope tying the buoy (that our boat in turn is attached to) to the wreck, not much fun holding on to this rope for 3 minutes while doing a safety stop in strong current

Koh Phi Phi Lee and boat full of tourists

Dinner!

Once on the boat to Phi Phi Islands the sun comes out

It’s not very busy on the boat

Getting close now, some big clouds in the sky

The very typical shape of so many Thai islands

I doubt anyone has ever walked on those ridges

Lots of these typical Thai boats carrying tourists around

Approaching Ton Sai Pier

Ton Sai Beach

Ton Sai Pier seen from Ton Sai Beach

By villa for the evening, cheapest I could find, I’m only there to sleep so why pay a lot?

Of course I want to see the sunset so I make the walk to Viewpoint 2, here you can clearly see the narrow strip of land connects the two mountaines parts of this island

Big fruits hanging in the trees here, I wonder if these are those stinky ones

Still a while to go before the sun sets

I’m not the only one who had the great idea of going here this evening

So the island I’m currently on is called Ko Phi Phi Don, the other island in the distance and to the left is Ko Phi Phi Lee

The sun is about to set

Bye! See you tomorrow!

And it’s gone…

Still beautiful colours in the sky

With the sun below the horizon there’s still plenty of light to take some photos of the viewpoint

They really put some effort into making the place look nice

Lots of lights start to come on

It’s time to discover the night life, it looks fantastic and cozy here

But there aren’t exactly a lot of people

And that’s a shame because it sure looks lovely here

Someone preparing to give a show

Swirling around fiery things, which seems to be what they do here

Some members of the public are asked to participate

But what I’ll remember mostly is how loud the music is, how awesome the bars look…

…but how empty they are. Maybe it’s just not high season here at the moment