OK, so I'm a busy man and often enjoying my one and only day off takes precedence over coming into the office and letting (theoretically at least) the world know what is going on with me. And quite a lot has happened over the last few weeks I can tell you. But I'm not going to. Why? Because believe it or not we still haven't finished on the introductions, and we're not going to get any further with those either today.
"WHY!!?!?!?" I hear you shout, or at the very least murmur in an uninterested fashion. Well, I'll tell you a little story that will explain everything......
It's Saturday the 9th September. The time is 11:00am. The sea is flat and blue, belying the fact that we are in the middle of monsoon season here in Phuket. I'm returning from an overnight trip to Phi Phi with 2 other staff members and 8 customers. On checking the tide tables, I notice that there will be no current for the next dive and instead of diving on Shark Point (beautiful, if over dived by myself), I opt for the smaller, though no less impressive (and definitely under-dived by myself) Anemone Reef.
We jump into the blue and descend over the reef, moving from lovely 20m visibility at 15m down to the murky 7m visibility at 25m at the lower reaches of the reef.
"Bugger" says I too myself, thinking not unreasonably that I may have made a rather poor choice this morning. In fact, I could see in the customers eyes that the thought of large tips as a thanks for fantastic diving were not at the forefront of their minds (and how correct was I to be about this particular thought!!).
On leaving the murky depths in the hope that something could be salvaged from the dive, I looked out into the blue as something caught my eye. Something (in fact a few something's) quite sizeable were lurking of the reef. On closer inspection these appeared to be cobia. In fact on closer inspection, it became clear that they were actually a shoal of cobia. And what is it dear reader that these, relatively large fishy friends escort around the ocean?
That's right............
The Boss!! The largest fish in the ocean!! The fish who from here on in we shall call Brian!!
To inform those who are thus far lacking the knowledge and are at this moment in time thinking "what is this guy banging on about? It's a big fish for Christs sake!", let me educate you.
Brian is a whale shark (Rhincodon Typus for the geeks amongst you). In fact, Brian was an 8m whale shark. I think you'd agree friends, that that is a not inconsiderable fish. He was a curious little fellow, and we managed about 20 to 25 minutes of rather close (though I ought to point out non-touchy feely) interaction before the customers ran short of air, and in all honesty, Brian ran out of attention span. And that's what I came here to say.
Showing off really. And unashamadely at that!!
See you soon kids,
Mik.
ps. Brian will soon be registered with www.whalesharkproject.org , after which I'm sure that I'll discover Brian is actually Belinda. Please check out their website and help save these amazing creatures.
Cheers!
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