At 1pm we had to be out the door for the tour which we had booked the previous day, it was a snorkelling trip with a visit to the beach made famous by the film "The Beach". Around 12.50 the Sheila's we had been hanging around with arrived so we could set off to the meeting point. We went off and got sized up for flippers and shoes, sizes were easy to remember as they all had numbers on the front, I was 42 whereas Max was 44. After we were fully equipped with stuff we left for the boat and to our first stop in some shallow reef where we were told we would encounter the usually harmless Black Tip Reef Shark, the fact that these sharks are usually quite easily scared didn't make the trip too promising with around 15 people floating about in the water, tactically I decided to hang back from the group as most people were following the guide like sheep I was more interested in taking in all the wildlife under the surface and the amazing colours and quantities of the fish.
My knowledge of the marine life paid off when I was rewarded with an encounter with the shark, as I was casually looking at some fish I looked up and saw a shark swimming towards me then off to my side, a close encounter certainly, I looked up out of the water and saw Jon looking back at me he had just seen the very same shark. Even though I was aware they very rarely attack humans I was still a bit uneasy at having a shark bigger than I was swimming about underneath me. We snorkelled some more and headed back to the boat where we took off to our next stop which was cliff diving, usually I am against this sort of thing because I don't want to die on rocks under the water but the guide must be doing this trips everyday so he knows the right places to dive, we needed our rock climbing shoes so he called out the numbers and people collected their shoes when appropriate, Max decided that he would take some 42's instead of his designated 44, of course if one person gets it wrong it has a domino effect so everyone starts claiming the wrong shoes, it came down to a witch hunt on the boat and the guide quickly worked out Max was so clueless that he didnt even know what his own name was and so everyone silently resent Max for his inability to remember the number 44.
We then jumped out the boat and climbed a rock face that was steep and razor sharp, had you fallen you would have been cut to pieces and probably died from blood loss before being devoured by a Great White. I believe the jump was 10 metres that we had to do, it may not sound much but standing on the edge of that cliff looking down at he sea made me contemplate life, anyone that knows me knows I have a history of bad diving especially in the swimming pool and today was no exception, I seem to get caught in indecision and during my time in the air I changed position and ended up bombing, it sounded awful but I was alright as nothing effects me. After the other guys on the tour had finished proving how tough they were by jumping off something higher than the previous person we got back on the boat and had lunch, Max had selected us chicken rice which I must say surprised me as when I found out Max had chose the meal I was expecting something and chips. The rice was delicious and I even had some of Max's. After this we head to "The Beach" or Maya Bay as its more formally known, we pulled into the bay which is surrounded by huge cliffs with a small entrance at the mouth.
We were greeted with the sight of an amazing beach with white soft sand and a sea cucumber in the water. We walked around and spent 40 minutes there during which I carried out some more snorkelling and even tried to catch a crab but it was too quick, we then got back on the boat and were treated to one more stop which was more snorkelling but this time with turtles, we all jumped out the boat and into some water that was a little bit too deep for my liking, I again used my tactic of staying further behind the rest of the group but this time someone was on my level so me and mystery traveller #1 browsed the coral together, again I was rewarded by an up close and personal meeting with Mr. Turtle, Me and my new friend ripped off the snorkel and dived down to have a little touch of the turtle before we watched him swim away. Back on the boat it seemed most people had seen a turtle but just Me and my snorkelling buddy had been lucky enough to stroke one.
We then drove back to shore but about half way through we stopped off in prime location to watch the sun set, to say it was picturesque would be doing it an injustice, it truly was spectacular and even though I took pictures I don't think you can appreciate it unless you saw it. Back on land and back to the room Jon decide to verbally lay into me again for some reason as it becomes more apparent he doesn't understand how to enjoy himself without having an alcoholic beverage. I had a nap and we woke up and went to the bars, I was not in the best of moods, probably because of Jon's outburst, we went to a place called Reggae Bar which promotes the fact that you and a friend can gain a free bucket if you have a Thai Boxing Fight, seeing this as an opportunity for Jon to release his anger on me and finally re-assert myself as top dog I offered him the chance to fight, I asked him about 10 times to make sure he didn't want to miss the chance to try and beat me up and he declined each time, I won't make assumptions but I think he knew that it would be a humiliation for him to step into the ring with someone much stronger than him. I then left for the room as I was having a shit night, I stopped off for some rice on the way back and also a spring roll, I have gained a small addiction to rice over the last 24 hours but as its not class A drugs I think il be ok. I then watched some Italian football and a music channel that I didn't understand before deciding to play with my phone as none of the channels were in English.
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