found a pirates peg leg

I am trying to think of these last two days and away to sum up the last few days. Its been a blur of greenery, scenic places, and dream like experiences. The last two days consisted of over 14 hours of being on the water, and 2 hours of hiking up roads into jungles. 

This past Wednesday the 2nd I decided to go roaming around Phuket up into the edge of the town and the jungle, which has amazing views to the ocean. 

Then the diving began. Wednesday we went off shore diving which means with all our gear on we walked out into the ocean off of Kata beach. There we swam out to a coral reef. There we saw everything from butterfly fish, to porcupine fish. We also saw several lion fish, and a juvenile oriental sweet lips (this fish does a little dance as a form of mimicry). We also got to see how the local dive areas protect the reef from fishing trawlers. The sank giant cement blocks around the reef, which catches the nets of fishing trawlers. Not only do these structures protect the reef but that also serve as a "fake reef". 

Trying to think up a way to summarize all the amazing sites seen today is just to much so instead I'll introduce my day with a series of pictures. 

These are just a few of the many pictures taken. We went to three dive sites, two based next to the island cliffs, then the last one where all the blue anemones are is in the middle of no where. The first site was a coral reef where, we saw a green sea turtle, and eel, lots of parrot fish, butterfly fish, angel fish, urchins, puffer fish, porcupine fish, and cow fish. We also got to see living red corals, and apparently there was a leopard shark, however we missed it due to a previous dive group scared it off. The second site was again another reef next to these lime stone cliffs, but here we got to see a sea slug and a nudibranch! We also lucked out and saw two hawkbill sea turtles, and also more eels.Here I also had a little bit of an accident where I wasn't too focused on my air amount and need a budy to let me share their air. Where upon I started to drift towards the surface (note the picture above of the struggling diver).  The last dive site which is considered an advanced dive site due to the strong currents that circulate between these pillars of anemones and soft corals. Here we saw sea horses! 

Which were amazing. Also we saw lots of sea fans and over all it was just amazing. Tomorrow we are out at sea again! Look for more pictures and up dates.