Dive #261 - Rich Torkington's Dive Log

These three trees mark the dive site on Koh Ba Ngu
Photo by Rich in Similan Islands 2010

Hypselodoris bulockii - see the baby above it?
Photo on this dive by Kim in Similan Islands 2010

Dive Journal: Details of this dive day, March 12, 2010, were captured by Rich at torksinthailand.blogspot.com/2010/03/queen-scuba-day-2.html.

In order to continue diving, I'm still trying to suppress my cold, and so I'm laying off both the beer and coffee. This morning I'm heavily dosed up again on Tylenol, Actifed, Afrin, and amoxicillan. A walking pharmacy. Also, I decided to dive with 5 kg from now on - I've been needing to exhale too much at safety stops.

At dawn we sit for a light breakfast and dive briefing. We're moored beside Island #9 in the Similans, and the site will be Three Trees, aptly marked by three big trees on the shore.

It's again a very nice site consisting of an inclined reef with coral islands and sandy patches. Early on we spot a peacock mantis shrimp. They're the size of a very small lobster, but with pretty markings, and they wallop their prey with a forceful shock capable of breaking aquarium glass. Janel pings her fingers off her mask glass to remind us.

There is a gorgeous juvenile emperor angelfish on top of a coral mound, with bright concentric rings. Tuna divebomb from the surface here and there. We also spot a couple of yellow margin triggerfish that look every bit as menacing as the nasty titan triggerfish. Aside from these few identifications, the reef is overflowing with huge schools of juvenile reef fish, rainbow groupers, angelfish, fusiliers, and tons of fish everywhere.

Kim finds a great nudibranch, specifically a hypselodoris bulockii, blue with orange twirlygigs. He got a great picture of it, and when he looked at it later, he saw that there was a baby one as well.

The water is warm, around 83F, but we encounter some good thermoclines. The interface is shimmery, and when we go through the temps drop to about 77 or 78F. As we finished up the dive, our safety stop caused us to drift over dozens more of the yellow marging triggerfish hunkered down into nests.

I felt a little antcy on this dive, having a hard time relaxing. Probably due to all the meds.

Sealife Observed on this dive:
2 peacock mantis shrimp
ornate ghost pipefish
yellow margin triggerfish
juvenile emperor anglefish (concentric pattern)
tunas divebombing into schools of smaller fish
TONS of schooling fish everywhere