Netnawee Similan overnight trip 22/02/08

So another great trip to the Similans, the weather was fantastic (well up until we got back to Khao Lak - it's raining here!) the conditions in the water were very good as well, with good visibility and a beautiful flat sea with hardly any wind or waves!




On this trip we were joined by Darcy and her family, Gary and Ryan were diving (shown in picture) and Maggie who had lots of fun snorkeling. Darcy is going to be joining the Wicked Diving family whilst she completes her divemaster training. Darcy has been in Thailand for some time now working in Bangsok teaching in a school there, the children's final exams are coming up this week, so, when they are finished Darcy will be making her way to Khao Lak and will be starting her training with us! Darcy's dad, Gary completed his course about 30 years ago and so to make sure he was super prepared for the trip decided to do the whole course again before he came on the liveaboard. Ryan, her brother had just recently completed his Open Water course but the whole family proves to be comfortable and confident in the water and had an excellent set of dives.


Staff on the boat were Klaus and myself (Becky) and we were lucky enough to have Marcel on the trip again. He was teaching Andrea her Open Water Course and this trip wasn't going to be a relaxing holiday for him! We had him working hard in between teaching he was scrubbing the deck, polishing the rails, wiping the tables and anything else we could find for him to do . . . he's going to make someone a wonderful husband . . . any offers ladies?


Also joining from Germany was Christian a friend of Klaus and also one of his old students from Koh Tao, Hubert, Harry and Craig from the US. They can all been seen in the picture below on there way out to a night dive. Harry's girlfriend Andrea gained her Open Water certificate and absolutely loved her first experience in the ocean.

A great trip was had by everyone so thanks for diving with us here at Wicked Diving and hope to see you again soon.

Netnawee Similan overnight trip 18/02/08

This trip saw Fabio and Barbara pass their Open Water course under the instruction of Corrado a new Italian instructor who has been joining us on the boat. Also joining us was another instructor, Dave who was joining this trip just for fun! He was accompanied by Neville, Kim and Miyuki from South Africa, Norway and Japan so quite a mix of people on the boat! Rachel and Louie both from the UK also joined us for snorkeling. Last but not least was Theresa who didn't snorkel or dive but was along to have a relaxing time on the islands and the boat.

We had a change to our schedule for this trip and went out to a dive site near island number 3 for our early morning dive. Islands 1-3 of the Similans are closed to divers for reef rehabilitation and also because there is a turtle sanctuary on island number 1. There is however two dive sites near island 3 which we can dive. The one we went to was called shark fin reef, the dive site is almost entirely under the surface with a series of large rocks and boulders stretching about 1km it is a pretty impressive dive site, it is also one of the only places in the Similans where you can find humphead parrot fish, and they're pretty big. Also there were loads of blue dashed fusillers (shown above ) swimming above, below and all around making it a little hard to work out where to look! Other pictures shown are yellow box fish (above left), red tooth triggerfish (above right) Miyuki (below left), scorpian fish (below right) and Neville (below left)

A good trip was had by everyone with lots of interesting marine life been seen by divers and snorkelers. Rachel and Louie were surprised by the amount of different fish that they saw snorkeling , both both were lucky enough to have the company of a turtle with them. Of course everyone had time to relax and digest all the fantastic food being served to them throughtout the trip by our fantastic cook pee Pa. Whilst on the beach we decided to take a frisbee and throw it around for about 15 minutes before having to sit down and have a rest or running into the sea to cool down...

So would like to say a big thank you from Wicked Diving for a fantastic trip!

ps Extra special thank you for Dave for the underwater pictures!

Netnawee Similan overnight trip 15/02/08

Not often we have returning customers returning on the boat only a day later but theres a first time for everything! So Alessandro had clearly decided that 3 days wasn't long enough for him in the Similans and so he decided to book himself on the next trip immediately. This time I joined the trip for fun instead of working so that me and Alex could go and dive together, after working together for a while in Koh Tao was a nice change to actually go and just fun dive together, was a brilliant holiday for myself as well!

Myself (Becky) and Klaus (pictures left) were joined on this trip by Sarah (pictures right) an instructor who was teaching on this trip. On this trip we were also lucky enough to see not one but two turtles swimming together at Donald Duck bay. They came straight after breakfast and circled the boat for quite a while and think almost everyone jumped into the water to have a swim with them. Shown in the picture is Stacy all geared up and ready to go and Julia and Marcel at the end of the boat.









There was also time as always to go relaxing on the beach where Stacy treated everyone to some of her poi skills!

But it wasn't all fun on this trip some people were working hard as well, Diana and Mark decided to do their Open Water and their Advanced on this trip and were really keen to learn. They spent a couple of days on land and finished all their confined skills and all their theory before even stepping on the boat, keen or what. They then completed all their Open Water dives and moved straight onto the Advanced course so congratulations guys!

They were taught by Sarah who joined us for this trip and had a lot of fun with the guys. All in all everyone had a fantastic time diving, so thank you all and hope to see you again soon!







Khao Lak Diving

Similans

Liveaboards

Netnawee Similan overnight trip 11/02/08

So the Netnewee set out again for another trip to the Similan Islands and this time the trip was joined by.......

It's Marcel!

(not sure what he is doing in this picture though..)






Another special guest appearance was made by Poy who was joining Netnawee for a trip as his birthday present from everyone here at Wicked Diving.



So Marcel joined us on the trip with his friend Vincent (pictures above) from Holland, so was having a little bit of a holiday although this didn't stop him from certifying Erica,William and Poy as new Advanced Open Water students. They can been seen in the picture with Marcel teaching them about the navigation part of the course. Poy enjoyed the trip a lot and now already has 17 dives under his belt.


Also joining us was Alessandro a divemaster who I used to work with at Scuba Junction in Koh Tao. Alex had never dived the Similan Islands before and absolutely loved it! Although he seemed to find it a little tiring as well, he better shape up as he gets ready to go back and work in Koh Tao for the coming season.



There was another short bout of wind on the trip again, luckily in didn't spoil the trip or change our itinary but meant that our chef Pi Paa was unable to cook whilst we were on the dive site as the waves were so high. So she had so much to do after the dive was over and we got into calm water, so, Klaus and Tuk came down into the kitchen to offer their culinary skills and help her out, although this time Tuk wasn't wearing the filly apron...

Everybody enjoyed the trip a lot and we had a mix of Italians, German and Swedish joining us. Marzia and Christian 2 of our Italian customers were taking a break form their busy schedule of jetting around the world as flight attendants. They were both recently Certified Open Water students who hadn't dived for about 6 months and they turned out to be like fish underwater and were really good fun to dive with.

So big thank you to everyone for such a fantastic trip and hope to see you again at Wicked Diving!




Khao Lak diving

Similans

Liveaboard guide

warning - Samui to Bangkok buses

Excerpt from a recent posting on Lonely Planet.

Please avoid tourist buses in the south! This is not an infrequent story!

Take your time and go to the government bus stations and buy tickets.




Hi i was writing this to a friend on Ko Samui at the moment and thought it would be a good idea to share this story as a warning.

I booked a combined ticket from Samui to Bangkok for the 9th of March 2008 and this is the experience i got.


hey XXXXX you should be careful when heading back up to Bangkok by bus from Ko Samui, as all the people on the bus i was on to surat thani had their bags under the bus searched through and stuff stolen. i had heard of this before so i never leave anything valuable in there, but even i had a towel stolen! yes a towel! so crazy.

maybe you can tell the place where i booked my ticket that the people on teh bus had their shit stolen whilst in transit? i think you know my guest house, anong guest house, and i was on the ticket which leaves at midday and costs 650 baht.

the part of the journey where we had stuff stolen was when we were moved from the taxi to a bus, which went on the ferry, and then dropped us off at surat thani.

anyway.. that is not the craziest part of the story.

when some one realised that he had stuff stolen and started complaining, the guy from the place we were waiting at stormed out and started punching him! it was so f*cking incredible! the guy's girl friend tried to break it up and this f*cking guy starts punching and kicking and kneeing her too! it was really fucking disgusting. after that we went around to the nearby shops to get someone to call the tourist police, but at every shop the people refused to give us the number. F*CKING ARSEHOLES! eventually we called the police but when they came they didnt give a shit that this guy and his girlfriend were assaulted! i mean she had a broken nose and everything!

it was just such a crazy experience, and i think goes to show that the thai police dont f*cking care about you and wont help you for any reason, the only thing they can be relied upon for is extortion if they find a joint on you.

anyway, maybe it would be a good idea to tell this to other people you know in thailand or who are going to thailand soon so that they know what can happen

-peace

Netnawee Similan overnight trip 08/02/08

We're Back!!

Netnawee has been chartered for the last week in Phuket but is finally back in the water, Horay!

This trip saw a mass movement from Koh Tao we had Josiane, Fredric, Julie and Fredric coming from the rock and all newly certified Advanced Open Water students, and also a mass movement from Phoenix divers, Koh Tao including, Nick and Mark both recent advanced open water students along with their teacher Matte and other divemasters Parranya and Marc (shown in picture on left). Joining us from Hong Kong was a mixture of Latino spirit, with Fernando who was diving, Virginia who was snorkeling, and Frank and Daphne (pictured below) who were both completing their Open Water Course. They had all come for a short break from work so trying to get them to study proved to be a little hard for Tuk their instructor.



Conditions were a little less than ideal this trip it was a half moon and there were quite a few tricky currents, although what better conditions to learn in after this Daphne and Frank will be ready to face anything! Everyone coped well though and had a fantastic trip seeing lots of cool things under the water, due to the strong currents and big waves we changed the last dive of the trip from Koh Bon to Boonsung wreck one of our local dives. At first some of the divers were a little disappointed as they were all hoping to get a glimpse of the Manta Rays, but once we got to the Wreck they realised that it was a pretty good substitute.


The wreck has a variety of very interesting marine life on it with small less common things which make all of us particularly excited... During the dive we found 2 ghost pipe fish a small white one and a huge black one (well pretty big in ghost pipe fish terms), stone fish, tonnes of lion fish and puffer fish. There are also many juvenile fish swimming around you everywhere I turned around to catch Frederic swimming through them all with arms out stretched! We didn't manage to find the frog fish but we know its there somewhere. The wreck really is a fantastic place to dive very different to the Simlilan's and everybody loved it. So everybody had a very relaxing time although there were some that were working hard...

Pii Chai, Eep and Wit took advantage of the calm conditions we had on the 2nd day and decided to give the boat a clean, so they got snorkels and masks and hit the water.
















So very big thank you everyone for a Wicked trip, hope to see you all again soon!

Map to Our shop!

View Larger Map

We are located right in the center of Khao Lak, right on the Main road. We are right next door to Viking Steakhouse.

Located less than One hour North of Phuket airport, Khao Lak is quite accessible to the whole world!

This is also the main route for buses are cars between Phuket and Bangkok, so easy to get to.



Please

Overnight Schedule/Itinerary

Overnight trip schedule

Diving Schedule for Netnawee

Day 1

9am Depart from Taplamu/ Boat briefing

11am Dive safety briefing

12noon Lunch

1.30pm Dive 1 Island #6 Eel Garden (check dive)

3:00pm Snacks

4.30pm Dive 2 Island #7 West of Eden

6pm Dinner/ check into tents/transfers to island

Day 2

6.40am Pick up from island

7:30 Dive 1 - East Of Eden

8.30am Breakfast

10.30am Dive 2 island #7 Deep Six

12noon Lunch

1.30pm Dive 3 Island #4 West of Eden?

3pm Snacks/ transfer to island for time on the beach/ time to snorkel, walk nature trails

5.30pm Night Dive Briefing

6:30pm Night Dive

7.30pm Dinner/ transfers to island

Day 3

6.40am Pick up from island

7.30am Dive 1 Elephant head rock

8.30am Breakfast

10.30am Dive 2 Island # 9 Breakfast bend

12noon Lunch

1.30pm Dive 3 Koh Bon

3pm Snacks

6pm Arrive at Tublamu pier

Snorkeling Schedule for Netnawee

Day 1

9am Depart from pier/ Boat briefing

11am Dive safety briefing

12noon Lunch

1.30pm Transfer to island #4 snorkeling off the beach

Pick up/Snacks on boat

4.30pm Transfer onto island Free Time! Relax,
snorkel walk nature trails

6pm Dinner/ check into tents/transfers to island

Day 2

8.30am Pick up from island

8.30am Breakfast

10.30am Site 1 Island #7 Shallow Six

12noon Lunch

1.30pm Site 2 Island #4 Honeymoon Bay

3pm Snacks/ transfer to island for time on the beach/ time to snorkel, walk nature trails

5.30pm Pickup from island

7.30pm Dinner/ transfers to island

Day 3

6.40am Pick up from island time to relax on boat

8.30am Breakfast

9am Site 1 Island #8 Donald duck bay

10.30am Site 2 Island # 9 Breakfast bend

12noon Lunch

1.30pm Site 3 Koh Bon Bay

3pm Snacks

6pm Arrive at Tublamu pier

Happy Birthday Poy!

Yesterday we celebrated Poy's 20th birthday. As a newly certified Open Water student Poy has just discovered the new world under the surface of the water which we all love so much and loves it just as much as we do!
He got a few special surprises first from his sister Ohm who sent him Fins, Mask and a wetsuit and also from everyone here at Wicked diving, a trip on our 3 Day 2 Night overnight trip on the boat Netnawee.

Looking forward to having you on the trip with us Poy and Happy Birthday!

Khao Lak Divng - Our DM Challenge

The day finally arrived when 3 of our Wicked dive master trainees entered the big wide world of diving professionals and have become divemasters! Here they are shown with their mentor Marcel and other divemasters Becky and Robyn.


Throughout the divemaster course the girls had a lot of help from all our instructors and staff but they get allocated a mentor specifically to them who helps them throughout the course. Marcel was the lucky one to be responsible for their development and has helped the girls in many ways from the theory side of the course to building up their experience and confidence practically in the water. Now the girls are all set and ready to work... anyone have any offers? To complete the last part of their training the last thing to do was a dive master challenge. The location for this spectacular event was The Happy Snapper, Khao Lak.





Step ONE...

Challenge number 1

To guide a dive and find animals of interest, whilst staying together as a group.

Dive Site : Happy Snapper
Dive Time : 5 Minutes
Marine Life : Turtle
Shark
Whaleshark

To put their team-working skills to maximum use the girls were all joined together (the use of tape was handy here) , and Beyla and Mel were given a mask which they could not see out of at all (because they were covered completely in tape) However Anna was able to see out of her mask meaning that her fellow dive master trainees were going to have to trust her completely... This was of course carried out whilst drinking a potent cocktail of alcohol from a bucket.

As things do at DM Challenges, things may not go quite as planned, and ended up with Keith rescuing them from planting their heads into the bar! After a lot of time spent on the floor, maybe they still need to practice some of their team skills!


Challenge number 2

Exam time...

As all the girls hated the exams we decided to make them answer exam questions in front of the whole bar. You can see the worried expression on there faces as they have to deal with the pressure of it all, luckily the questions weren't too hard and there was no pass or fail...otherwise who knows what the result would have been.

Challenge number 3

The songbird...

Whilst not part of the divemaster course Beyla, has been earning a reputation for her brilliant voice in the Happy Snapper on open mic night, and what better way to finish her divemaster training than a song with backup from her 2 fellow divemasters?



The celebration carried on and at some point Marcel foolishly got out the permanent marker pen. Combined with just a little alcohol consumption... people were drawing on each others t-shirts and all over their bodies. The girls had many messages wishing them good luck amongst other things, although I think Beyla was a little disappointed to find that her message from Marcel had been written on all the girls t -shirts.







A lot of people woke up with blue stained sheets or in the case of Marcel, arrived at the wicked office to be greeted by a lot of laughter from a bunch of our guests, it took him a while to realise that he had forgotten to clean the attractive moustache that had been painted on his face the night before.



So we just want to say from everyone here at Wicked Diving thank you Beyla, Mel, and Anna for all the good fun over the last months and good-luck with everything in the future!


Khao Lak Diving