Phuket Dive Report

Phuket Dive Report - Day 2

Dive Sites:

Shark Point
Koh Bida Nok - East
Koh Bida Nai - East
Koh Phi Phi Ley - Ley Wall

Day two of diving in Phuket started at 8 AM on a new dive boat, with Calypso. This particular trip is a two-day, seven-dive trip with an overnight stay in a bungalow on Tonsai Beach on Koh Phi Phi. We headed out to Shark Point for our first dive. On my Shark Point dive yesterday, we only got about halfway around Pinnacle 1. (Not a bad thing...as I like diving slow and taking lots of pictures.) But this dive, we wanted to try to get to Pinnacle 2. So we went a bit faster on the first pinnacle and headed towards Pinnacle 2. In the sand between the two pinnacles, leopard sharks are rumored to hand out. Unfortunately, it was just a rumor as no sharks were spotted. Oh well, it was still a fabulous dive. Lots of puffers on this dive, including a new species for me, the map puffer. (See the picture below, which unfortunately doesn't do the fish justice. It's much more beautiful than my picture shows.) I also spotted some Clark's Anemonefish in a Beaded Sea Anemone. Why is this cool, you ask? Well, the Clark's Anemonefish is slightly bigger than most of the other anemonefish, and I hadn't ever seen one of these beaded sea anemones before. Most of the anemones in this area are the Magnificent Sea Anemone. Overall, it was a great start to the day of diving. Total Dive Time: 50 minutes Maximum Depth: 19.8 msw Average Depth: 12.5 msw.

The second dive was at Koh Bida Nok, East Wall. Koh Bida Nok is a small island near Koh Phi Phi. It's got a "typical" Phuket wall. (Limestone cliffs both above and below the surface.) The views on the wall were amazing, with big fan coral all over. On this dive, I spotted my first cornetfish (see picture below), along with a new nudibranch, a tesellated halgerda (To be fair, Marcia spotted the nudie for me.). In over three years of diving this was the first time Marcia has spotted this particular species, so it was a great find. It was tucked behind a sea urchin, so my camera kept focusing on the urchin rather than the nudibranch. Another cool find on this dive was an Emperor Angelfish that had two cleaner wrasse swimming on it. This was cool for two reasons. First, I happen to think the Emperor Angelfish is an amazingly beautiful fish. Second, to see "life on the reef" in action was very cool! This was a great dive, but the day was only getting better... Total Dive Time: 51 minutes Maximum Depth: 22.3 msw Average Depth: 12.6 msw

After lunch, we moved to another small island nearby called Koh Bida Nai. On this dive, I fully realized the difference between a cornetfish and a trumpetfish. (See the pictures below to compare.) Lots of nudibranchs and other typical reef fish. Feather stars everywhere. But the real highlight of this dive was a seahorse that another group spotted. It was tucked behind some coral hiding from the line-up of divers around it. I was probably the fifth diver to swim by and take a look, and there were quite a few divers waiting after me. So I took my two pictures and swam on. Marcia and I did the "sea horse dance." If you've never seen the sea horse dance, it's very similar to the ghost pipe fish dance. And as I said about dive number two of the day, this was a great dive, but the day was only getting better. Total Dive Time: 65 minutes Maximum Depth: 14.8 msw Average Depth: 9.5 msw

I had been looking forward to this dive since I booked the trip over a month ago. My first night dive since I moved from Puget Sound! Back at home, my dive buddy Tim and I would go for night dives quite often. But in Thailand night dives are harder to come by. I still remember my first night dive at Redondo vividly. Tim and I arrived around dusk. The plan was to descend among the pilings and see how comfortable I was, then descend from there. All went well, so we headed out to the pilings and dropped down some more right onto a Sailfin Sculpin. I was still pretty new to diving but in my first eight dives at Redondo, all during the day, I had never spotted a sailfin sculpin and here was one within the first five minutes. And the abundance of fish was amazing. I just went back and read my divelog and I commented on how many more fish were around. Then on our second dive of that day, we spotted my first ever Red Octopus. And it was eating a crab! A few times during these first two night dives we turned off our lights and swung our hands through the water. The bioluminescence was awesome! I remember standing on the surface taking our fins off after the second dive and asking Tim why anybody bothered to dive during the day. So from my small diatribe, two things are evident. I miss night diving, and I miss diving with Tim. He's a great dive buddy. (Luckily I'll be heading back to Seattle to visit next month and will get to dive with him again.) Anyway, back to the regularly scheduled programming. As I said, I was excited about this dive. And I wouldn't be disappointed. (Well, OK, one disappointment was that the dive was supposed to be limited to 30 minutes. So we began our ascent at 30 minutes exactly, trying to eek out as much time as possible.) We dropped into the water and signaled to descend. We dropped down and found the bottom at around 10-12 msw. And Marcia was signaling me like crazy. So I swam over and she was pointing at a cuttle fish! But it gets better. The cuttle fish was feeding. It snapped out its tongue and snatched a fish right out of the water. Dinnertime. I grabbed my camera as fast as I could and took some video and pictures. (See below for both.) We watched it for a few minutes before heading out to see more. The next highlight was another new nudie called an Ornate Dermatobranchus. It was sitting on a branching coral, and almost blended into the coral. I wasn't even sure it was a nudie at first, but I took some pictures anyway. It was very cool looking! What a great end to the day. Total Dive Time: 37 minutes Maximum Depth: 12.9 msw Average Depth: 9.4 msw

Pictures are below. Click on the image to see a larger version.

Shark Point

Beaded Sea Anemone, Heteractis aurora, with two Clarks Anemonefish, Amphiprion clarkii	Juvenile Yellow Boxfish, Ostracion cubicus	Feeding Sea Cucumber, Bohadschia graeffei	Map Puffer, Arothron mappa. My picture


Freckled Goatfish, Upeneus tragula	Longbeaked Coralfish, Chelmon rostratus	Cushion Star, Culcita novaeguineae	Unknown Wrasse


Barrel Sponge, Xestospongia testudinaria, with a Chocolate Grouper, Cephalopholis boenak	Here's a close-up of the Chocolate Grouper "holding" on to the barrel sponge to stay out of the current.	Mantis Shrimp, Odontodactylus scyallarus (I know, it's not a great picture. But these are so cool looking, I had to include this picture.)	Chocolate Grouper, Cephalopholis boenak. Not the best picture, but I show it because I observed many different chocolate groupers "holding" onto the reef to avoid the current.


Magnificent Sea Anemone, Heteractis magnifica, with a False Clown Anemonefish, Amphiprion ocellaris	Magnificent Sea Anemone, Heteractis magnifica, with a False Clown Anemonefish, Amphiprion ocellaris	A school of fish, unsure of the species.	A school of juvenile barracuda.




Koh Bida Nok - East

Longfin bannerfish, Heniochus acuminatus	Sea Urchin, Echinothrix calamaris	Two feather stars on the reef	Bubble Coral, Plerogyra sinuosa


A view of the reef and Marcia up ahead.	Bluespotted Grouper, Cephalopholis cyanostigma	Cornetfish, Fisularia cammersonii	Barrel Sponge, Xestospongia testudinaria. I'm not sure what the white stuff is on the side of the sponge.


Bubble Coral, Plerogyra sinuosa I know I have a lot of pictures of this, but I happen to think it's some of the coolest looking coral. (Besides, it's one of the easier corals to actually identify.)	Golden Damsel, Amblyglyphidodon aureus. (Not the best picture...)	Unidentified Sea Cucumber. But it was HUGE!	Unidentified scorpionfish.


Magnificent Sea Anemone, Heteractis magnifica, with a False Clown Anemonefish, Amphiprion ocellaris.	Marcia taking a picture.	A beautiful branching coral on the wall.	A feather duster. Not sure of the species.


A cool coral formation. Here's a video of a HUGE school of reef fish. (It's 25 MB, so be patient with the download.)	Looking up the wall.	Magnificent Sea Anemone, Heteractis magnifica, with a False Clown Anemonefish, Amphiprion ocellaris. (Sorry, I guess I'm getting a little carried away with my "nemo" pictures.)	Juvenile Yellow Boxfish, Ostracion cubicus.


Emperor Angelfish, Pomacanthus imperator	Emperor Angelfish, Pomacanthus imperator, with two Bluestreak Cleaner Wrasse, Labroides dimidiatus.	The same Emporor Angelfish, with one of the cleaner wrasse.	Tessellated Halgerda nudibranch, Halgerda tessellata.


Tessellated Halgerda nudibranch, Halgerda tessellata.	One more shot of the Tessellated Halgerda nudibranch, Halgerda tessellata.	Feather Star, Comanthina schlegeli	Unidentified hermit crab with cool yellow and black eyes.


Java Rabbitfish, Siganus javus. (With ID Help from "Vie" on ScubaBoard.)	Unidentified scorpion fish.	Indian Dascyllus, Dascyllus cameus.	A view of the reef, and a White Collar Butterflyfish, Chaetedon collare.


An unidentified fish. (I'm thinking either wrasse or parrotfish.)	Alright, one more "nemo" picture.	Sea Cucumber, Actinopyga lecanora.	Fan coral, unidentified species.


A feather star on a piece of coral.	Another unidentified fish. (This one I think is a parrotfish of some sort.)	The island of Koh Bida Nok.

Koh Bida Nai - East

Featherstar on a branching coral.	Trumpetfish, Aulostomus chinensis.	An unidentified reef crab.	Another feather star. The actual species is difficult to identify.


Moorish Idol, Zanclus comutus.	Varicose Phyllidia, Phyllidia varicosa	An unidentified snail. The shell was HUGE!	Spotfin Lionfish, Pterois antennata.


Yet another unidentified parrotfish.	Cornetfish, Fistularia commersonii	A fish and a crab hiding in some staghorn coral.	Orange cup coral. (Not sure if this is the real common name. I haven't identified the species yet.)


Bluelined Grouper, Cephalopholis formosa	Map Cowrie, Cypraea mappa	A big fan coral.


The seahorse! (Not sure of the species.)	A bit of a close-up of the seahorse. Not a great picture...but it's a seahorse.


Koh Phi Phi Ley - Ley Wall

Broadclub cuttlefish, Sepia latimanus.	Another picture of the cuttlefish. And here's some video. (The file is about 11 MB.)	Unidentified sea cucumber.	Unidentified featherstar.


Ornate Dermatobranchus, Dermatobranchus ornatus.	Another shot of the Ornate Dermatobranchus.	An unidentified sea cucumber.	The south end of a northbound sea cucumber, Bohadschia graeffei


Fimbriated Moray Eel, Gymnothorax fimbriatus	Looking inside a barrel sponge at a transparent shrimp.	Here's a close-up of the shrimp. Not sure of the specific species.	A bright red reef crab hiding in some coral.