After last season’s excitement at granny’s crack we have already had another adrenalin pumping dive this season at the Three Islets. This time in the form of a night dive. The excitement started immediately on entering the water. Whilst doing the final okay I was speared in the arm by a large needle fish which was startled by the dive lights from MV Similan Jazz.
We then descended into the canyon and had to negotiate our way through a school of hunting barracuda which were non too impressed about us suddenly lighting up their hunting ground ! One bumped into my head before swimming through the rest of the following group causing havoc along the way. Siamese White our intrepid leader then lead us into a school of large rainbow runners which seemed to react even more negatively than the barracuda to the addition of lights. By now we were at the very narrow end of the canyon about to enter the long thin swim through. Siamese White was rewarded with powerful hit to the arm and Andy almost had his mask removed by a frisky rainbow runner! All this in a confined space at night time!!
Once into the swim through all seemed calmed until Siamese White encountered a black-tip shark blocking the exit. Luckily the shark made a hasty exit only to be replaced by a confused looking blotched fantail stingray about 1.5m wide. Just big enough to fill the swim through and provide yet another dangerous obstacle for us to negotiate a way past. Luckily the ray’s sting stayed away, no repeats of any Steve Irwin type incidents 😉 After that the rest of the dive passed in relative calm, but have to admit seeing other large rays and cobias near by kept the heart beating till the end!
Luckily we had plenty of Myanmar rum and beers on board to calm all us battered, bloodied and bruised divers down. What a fantastic dive, hope we have many more to come 🙂 Thanks to all who participated. Darwin.
