A days diving on Sailrock. 30-12-2009

Red snappers and in the distance a group of Fuseliers.

Visability was about 25 meters.

On of my divers found this group of Fuseliers most attracting.

A blue ringed angelfish is one of the more common fish around here.

The grow up to about 30 centimeters in length, and are nice coloured

fish to see.

This is a giant porcupine fish of about 60 cm. Just hanging around

and cleaned by cleaner wrasses during our safetystop.

Big eye trevally are always found on Sailrock,

from 25 meters depth till 5 meters.

A 6 banded angelfish is a kind you don't see every day, but

are common. Not all divesites have them.

Wideangles of Whiterock and Twins divesite

The visability on Twins can be a real treat sometimes.

One of the nicer places around Koh Tao.

This is the top of Twins. Not many corals, but what there is, is nice.

Nice gorgonians can be found on Twins and Whiterock.

One of the people who dive here like to pose for my camera.

Here is one of my shots i took last time, and try to get

the lighting on the right place.

Fundiving is the word for the sites.

Enjoy, and maybe make a small comment if you want.

At last shooting some macro on Koh Samui

A Pink anemonefish in his anemone.

A very nice example of where the name parrotfish is coming from. The beak.

A Longsnout clingfish. These are wiggeling over the reef.

Detail off a Fanworm.

Christmastree worm, in a colour i never have seen.

Diving on Sailrock and Koh Ma

I have shot a photo of a kind of softcoral, but does anybody know what the name of this kind is showing here below?

This shot was actually taken at Koh Ma island north of Koh Phangyang.

Also are there some places with saddleback clownfish. They are very grumpy if you come close to them, but it is more bluff then a real defensive attack.

This was a strange dive, where i shot the photo shown here above. They are called Chevron Baracuda, but the visability where i shot it, was 20 meters. But on the other side of the island visability was going down to only 1 meter. And as you can see here, there are a lot of fish to find here. And that is what Sailrock makes famous. Probably the best divesite in the Gulf of Thailand.

This video i shot from the 'Seafarher' boat owned by Planet Scuba. This baby whaleshark stayed with us for 5 hours, and he was playing with the divers and snorklers like a dolphin.

Update of diving around Koh Samui

A view of the Seastar diveboat from Easydivers Koh Samui

A string formed by a small kind of jellyfish.

Skunk anemonefish in a nice reefsetting at South west pinnacle.

A diver on South west pinnacle.

Diving around Sailrock

Barrelsponge

Sailrock in the Gulf of Thailand is known as the best divesite. You can find here the big pelagics and other species of life. Sometimes an occasional shark, or whaleshark. For spotting the whalesharks the best season is april may, but there are sightings throughout the year. Also big groups with Big eye trevallys, Fingermark breams, Chevron Baracudas, or fuseliers are frequently spotted on the rock.

Down here you can see some photos i shot on the island in the past

months.

Sunil with Batfish

Trevallys

Yellowtail baracudas under the boat

Squirrelfish

Group of fuseliers

So keep on returning back to my blog, where irregular updates will follow.

Some photos around the island and underwater

After 4 weeks now on Koh Samui i managed to get a decent amount of work for me. And maybe there is a contract in the making at the end of the month.

To give a little impression of Koh Samui i will post some photos here too.

This is my house i am renting on the island. It is located near Big Buddha, wich is a very nice thing to take a visit to and see it for yourself.

This is a picture taken from the statue. It sits on a small island in front of the coast of Samui, and can be reached by a small road.

Underwater the world is nice too. Night diving at Chaweng beach here on the island can be a challenge for the people who are used to clear visability, but for people who learned to dive or dive still in the murky waters in for instance Holland, it will be one to remember.

Small stingrays, seahorses, snake eels, yellow boxfishes, scorpionfish, shrimps. and much more.

On Koh Tao however, the water has much more visability, up to 30 meters. Here you can find big schools of fuseliers, trevallys, rabbitfish, baracudas and batfish. Or just go for the smaller stuff like cleanershrimps, hermitcrabs and small partnergobys.

But the big ones are here also. Whalesharks are occasionally seen here, but in April seems to be the high season for those animals. Just an amazing creature to see, and i think my buddy from last year can say yes too about the magnificent fish.

Squirrelfish at Sailrock. No strobe used.

An impression from the divesite Sailrock. Clear visability and nice big tablecorals

At last, home again. After a year being in the Netherlands i moved back to Samui forever i hope. It was a strange year, but now is everything looking up again. Lots of work and good fun with friends again. But also new friends, and friends who don't wanna be friends any more. What is changed on Samui. Well developping is going fast here on the island, but there are enough beautifull spots to be found here. nice secluded beaches and lush jungle. Diving didn't change though. Still great, and with a watertemperature of about 29-30 C it is very good.

Didn't see any whaleshark yet, but there was one sighted 2 days ago, so they are still coming to the islands.

next time i post i will add some pictures surrounding my house.

Keep you posted

Well almost it is time to leave my homecountry and find my way in Thailand. After almost 25 years i take the big plonge and leave to a foreign country to live there. I really hope that i can make good friends there, and have some of my old friends come over to visit me sometimes. Just for a vacation and do some diving.

Maybe it will be a hard time, but i don't think like that. I like to see it as a big challenge and a big opportunity to proove myself.

I am looking forward to give my best i can be.