Diving - Immersion

So lets see whether I can do credit to my passion...scrabble around for appropriate words...express the enticing nature of tropical scuba diving...hmmmn!

Amongst the Ko Phi Phi Marine Park are two spectacularly beautiful dive sites, Bida Nok and Bida Nai.You sink below the surface to a mass of life hanging in the depths amongst the coral. The rock walls and pinnacles are covered by velvety pink and red barrel sponges and intricate gorgonian sea fans larger than me. You emerge through a swimthrough, the glassfish parting before you to hover effortlessly above the reefs,gorging yourself in the abundant colour.

Red and white squirrelfish shelter beneath vast sheets of plate-like table coral, damselfish dart in and out of the bony branches of the staghorn corals tipped with blue or white, and whip coral rises above the reef battling, flailing and writhing in the current. The richness and diversity of this underwater fairytale cake-icing landscape offer up knotted fan corals; white, yellow, pink, purple, black soft corals, hawksbill turtles feeding on pink bubble corals, and mounds of brain coral.


You hang motionless, air bubbles a glittering trail to the surface, priviledged to be amongst schools of yellow-striped snappers moving as a single entity; black and white striped seasnakes gliding, hunting or swimming to the surface for air; tiny, cute yellow boxfish swim about their snout pursed like a kiss; the trumpetfish hover head down;the copious tropical colours of the parrotfish and wrasse, angelfish, butterfly fish and emprorers- so regal, in stark contrast to the vaious species of moray eel mouth agape, looking like as if its swallowing testing the current for morsels to eat; clownfish dart in and out fiercly protecting their anemone, anemones of fleshy blues and pinks; scorpionfish so well camoflauged and adapted, often only their eyes betray their position to the keen diver;lionfish feathery finned suspended waiting for its prey;tigertail seahorses so delicate, perfect and bizarre nestled and anchored amongst the roots of fan corals, sprouting from nooks in the rock walls;anemonecrabs and porcelain crabs minute visible only as the current lifts and gently drops the underside of larger anemones; oriental and harlequin sweetlips;lobsters antennae protruding from a crevasse; perhaps the simple beauty and grace of a featherstar freeswimming, no longer clinging to the top of a fan; and the graceful leopard shark saunters effortlessly past, so perfectly designed,so elegant...sunlight penetrates the water, the silvers and neon colours shimmering and glinting...

Diving “provokes joy and contentment in a world where people find less and less space to experience their own personal space” (as Time Ecott says in his fab book Neutral Bouyancy). Each dive is a haven, freedom, equilibrium, allowing your mind to free itself of the everyday clutter of the terrestrial world, allowing perspective. There exists a degree of intimacy in diving with other people, no verbal communication, merely a shared experience, look or signal...

Na, can't do it justice, you'll just have to give it a go eh?