Diving Andamans and Surin

Of course, the vain girl diver had to pack her essentials along. Sun, sea and sea breeze does so much damage, Dahling.. but nothing La Mer and Kerastase can't fix! Ooh.. and bubbles for the bathtub onboard too! Anyone tells me that's not authentic diving.. sorry, you just wanna be me.

Travel route: Took a flight on Silkair to Phuket's Patong Beach on 15 Feb. Under the starry skies, a tender took us to the motor yatch. It's a day and a half ride to the AndamanIslands after that. This is the skyline of Patong Beach in the day. Two and a half years post-tsunami.

Who wouldn't wanna come back to a fully air-conditioned 'cabin' with queen size bed after a hard day's dive? Talk about 5-star.. this is like a floating hotel.

Sunrise in the Andamans. It's 6am India time and 8am back home. Woke up extra early for this pretty pix. Can almost hear the deep jewel blue sea calling. Yeah, it's slightly choppy with some currents for the entire dive duration. But that's ok, here's where I saw me first mantas. There's a superstition that says you must back-flip from the boat for every manta you see. I guess all the past back flips made up for the six ballerinas of the ocean I saw. There's just something cold and hypnotizing about the deep-blue almost black ocean that makes my breath catch in the throat.

Port Blair and some sailing boats behind. It's part of India and supposed to be a former penal colony, if I got my facts right. It's the only port of call for Andaman divers. Diving in this area, you need customs, immigration and other what-not clearances here.


Port Blair: sans traffic lights, road markings on the entire island... basically, anything goes on this hot, happily chaotic paradise.



Follow the alley that leads to this market square. Here's where we loaded up on musky sweet mangoes, starchy bananas and super long ladies finger.

Sugar cane peddlars. How cool is that machine eh?

There's a maori wrasse and spotted grouper in here. After a few days in Andaman with moderate visibility, currents and "freeze your balls off" water temperature, we decided to sail for Surin where the winds were calmer and waters warmer.

I don't know how we fished up this new born sting ray. But we DID throw it back in..

In between dives.. a little luxury of the jacuzzi and sun.

There's a story behind this whopper of a lobster we caught!

Dinner that night...

Daily toast, eggs and OJ before the dives.

Me getting the mask on. Cold waters in Andaman but the 3mm wetsuit kept me snug and warm, plus hoodie of course. Thanks for the new Air2, Val!

Er.. do you sometimes get a tendency to wee at the start of each dive? No? Maybe it's just me..

Two more of many sunsets through the trip.

Mmm.. well. It's been one of the most fascinating dives cos of the different underwater scenery that's comparable to the Maldives and unlike M'sian waters. Did more than 20 dives on the 10 day trip, which consisted of sea travel for 3 days. Sea fans, whips, shrimps, rays, numerous batfish, dogtooth, lionfish, marble and coral trout, even ikan bilis fish which we scooped up and fried. And an up close and personal with a banded sea snake once... and a giant school of fishes leaping on the water surface, being chased by predators.

Waking up each morning to rainbow bursts sunsets and feeling like you could really sail and fall off the endless blue horizon; pitch black nightfall and stars so low you can almost reach out to pluck them... well, this city girl was much moved by them.

Onboard, we got addicted to 24, a drama series starring Kiefer Sutherland which was so kickass we had to arrange our dinner settings to face the LCD screen. Jack Bauer, super CTU agent tracks you anywhere with mobile triangulation.. even if you're xx degrees longitude/latitude at sea on a floating hotel. Haha.. I think we were a bit sad to leave the place. "Bye bye Surin!" I heard one diver call out affectionately ... yeah... but not for long.