21st December 2016

The weekend seemed to fly by,  Sunday was busy.  I had spring clean which seemed to take forever.  I changed the sheets, washed the floors, sorted clothes, did some washing and did some shopping  ..before I knew it, Simon was home  ..so not the most relaxing of days.

This week I've been out diving most days, doing clean ups, drupella snail collections and to today. Tomorrow is Reef Check, for Chinese  ..what's good is that our friend Han Song is running it, he's Chinese by the way and I'm going to be there for backup.  It's the first Chinese Intro that we've ever done, so it should be interesting :-D

Simon has been in the wars.  He hurt his knee on the boat yesterday, bashed it on something and its very bruised and this morning he twisted his ankle on the other leg  ..so he's hobbling around a bit.

He's not been sleeping well at all.  I often, well not that often wake in the middle of the night to find him on his laptop or watching something on his phone.  For the amount of sleep he gets, he does very well, I'd be so craggy  ...even more so :-D

It's nearly Christmas and it doesn't feel like it at all ...we've got our Christmas dinner tomorrow night. Lovely that we get 24 hrs notice :-D

16th December 2016

This week I've been mostly working with the Dive Master trainees  ..or should I say candidates  ..as that's what we have to call them now according to PADI

Monday I did a dive site clean up with only a couple of people and then on Tuesday I did a Reef Check Intro / full course.  Reef Check is a standardized monitoring method used worldwide to see how the coral reefs are doing, We not only monitor Coral but Fish and Invertebrates.  It's a great course and I do the Intro (day 1) with usually about 6 DMT's and then out of that, there is usually 1 or 2 people who sign up for the whole course.  This last week I've been teaching a lady called Janine who was a joy to teach as she was so enthusiastic about everything  ..too much at times but I can't knock her for that.   Han Song the chap on the right did the course last year with Kirsty our old flatmate.  He came along just to help out which was just lovely.

Celebratory beer with new Reef Checker Janine

Saturday for some odd reason I agreed to do 'Adopt A Coral' which meant diving in the afternoon on my day off.  It wasn't so bad a Simon agreed to come along and take photo's of the adopted coral being selected and then the transplantation onto 'Tilly the Turtle' structure.

Transplanting onto Tilly the Turtle

The chosen coral

7th December 2016

As I mentioned before the weather on Koh Tao has been horrendous.  It's been near enough non stop rain, thunder and lightening and for me, I've not had to go out as I took the weekend off but feeling a little penned in, I took a chance on Sunday afternoon where there was a break in the weather and wend for a cycle up to the resevoir.  The new road that they've just completed was looking a bit worse for wear, already cracks, drainage full and mud/and slides from where they've been clearing the land.  

Small section of the road

With the weather being so terrible, the majority of the ferries had been cancelled which meant that rather than catching the 6am ferry we could only leave the island on the 9.30am which meant that we'd miss our flights from Surrathani to Kuala Lumpa ;-(  In the end,  Simon scrambled around and booked alternate flights from Samui.

The journey across to Samui was rough but not too bad.  I think the 2 seasickness tablets that we took helped.  I was sat next to a little boy who puked all the way.  Not the nicest of things.  Off the ferry it was a quick minibus ride to the airport.  Samui was just as wet and flooded as Koh Tao.  Arriving at the airport we were eager to get checked in and chill but it was chaos.  Some domestic flights had been cancelled due to the weather, by the looks of things most international flights were still going out but trying to get information was a nightmare.  We took refuge and went to the Irish bar for a drink :-D   Flights slightly delayed we made it safe and sound to KL just in time for the last leg of our journey to Penang where we were met and taken to our lovely colonial accommodation.

Fortress

Scary cat!!

'Purfect cafe'   ..some of the unsociable cats

Simon enjoying taking a break from cycling ;-D

2nd December 2016

It's been raining all night and the forecast for the next week or so looks pretty grim. wind rain etc. You know when it's going to get bad as all the fishing boats moor up and take shelter in the bays.

We have to go on a visa run to Penang, Malaysia and with the weather at the moment, there have been a few ferry cancellations.  Fingers crossed they'll be running on Monday morning.

I've been quiet this last week. I only went out a couple of times with the DMT's, one day to deploy some old gym equipment (2 x crosstrainers) at our artificial reef Junkyard and then a Beach &Dive site clean up.

One chap found an old GoPro 3. He somehow managed to turn it on and downloaded 3Gb of pictures & video and then decided to find the owner, posting the pictures and asking his friends to repost his mail.

In just 7 hours, the owner was located.  She had lost it kayaking, 2 years ago and was over the moon.

I'm sure that brought some great holiday memories back.  Lovely story!!

Our amazing Advent calendar that was sent to us by my God Daughter, Iona :-D

Christmas countdown :-D

24th November 2016

I don't really know where the time has gone, it just flies by.

What's been happening?  Well, no real big changes, I've been doing ECO with the DMT's (some pics below) and Si's been flat out, as per usual, managing the bar, making beer pong tables, sorting out people computers, working on websites, organizing visa runs ..and that's just the icing on the cake :-D

Beer Pong Tables in the making

Giant centipede

To the right is a picture of a giant centipede These centipedes have a fearsome reputation in Thailand.  It is said that a bite from this monster centipede is excruciatingly painful, even more so than a snake bite and the pain can last for up to 4-5 days.  Unfortunately Simon was bitten by a medium sized one that was hiding in his towel the other morning and I would say from Simon's reaction, it's true.

Beach Clean Up with a couple of the DMT's

Heading out for a fish net removal

A fishing net had been dropped at 'Shark Island and I went out with New Heaven Dive School to remove as much as we could.  The net is at 10m, 5mtrs wide and seems to go on forever  ...our first task was to check the for fish, stingray, crabs etc  and set them free and thento  take up as much of the net as possible without damaging the coral.

This net is so fine and fiddly that it's going to take a few more dives to get all of it off the reef.

Baby Turtle afternoon with DMT's

Yet again another successful afternoon with the DiveMaster Trainee's A turtle lecture, followed by measuring and feeding of the baby Hawksbill turtles.

10th November 2016

Life is good and we've just got back from Samui after extending our visa's for another 30 days.

We left Sunday morning on the Seatran and came back yesterday afternoon.  It was a lovely chilled out break from the Island. We stayed at our friends hotel for a couple of nights, did a bit of shopping, bought some decent cheese & wine and had a night out at the cinema to see Dr Strange which was lovely :-D

STORYLINE:    Dr. Strange's (Benedict Cumberbatch) life changes after a car accident robs him of the use of his hands. When traditional medicine fails him, he looks for healing, and hope, in a mysterious enclave. He quickly learns that the enclave is at the front line of a battle against unseen dark forces bent on destroying reality. Before long, Strange is forced to choose between his life of fortune and status or leave it all behind to defend the world as the most powerful sorcerer in existence

Today I'm in the office and just catching up with emails etc.  I was supposed to be going diving but as the boat is yet again going to the same dive site over and over again, I've decided not to go, in protest of course :-D

Simon started his Advance Free diving Course yesterday and as soon as we were back off the boat, he headed straight to the classroom, We were supposed to catch the 8am boat but for some reason that was cancelled, a few hours late, Simon was in catch up mode  ..not the best thing when you're trying to relax and hold your breathe.

8am start this morning for Simon and is on the afternoon boat free diving.  So I'll not see him all afternoon and then he'll be at the bar, managing  ..by which time I will have cycled home.

Tomorrow I've got a Beach and Dive site clean up  ...yay!!

1st November 2016

Dear Tom,

Wishing you a very Happy 21st Birthday!!

Wish we were there to celebrate with you but instead we'll be having a few drinks in your honor!!

Hope you get lots of great pressies and you enjoy being a Man, at last LOL

HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY!!!

Love and hugs,

Jenny Wren & Sid

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX