Trip Report The Phinisi: Best of Thailand, plus touring

[tursiops]

Northern Thailand chokes under severe smog as wildfires rage

Conditions could worsen as region copes with ongoing high temperatures and drought, environmentalists fear.

www.benarnews.org

What is your point? We were not there during these conditions you link to. The possibility of such conditions is why we had a particle counter with us.

 

[drrich2]

Most of the diving North and South was good to excellent, with acceptable viz and temperatures (85F+). Lots of good fish, some sharks, no mantas, good soft coral, pretty good hard coral, interesting topography, acceptable currents, fair number of nudibranchs and eels, very few crabs, couple of sea snakes, a few turtles, occasional pipefish, cowries, and octopuses.

Great report; lots of useful detail. Not that I'll ever make it to that region, but I'm curious about a couple of things others might find good to know.

1.) What was current like on the dives? Specifically I wonder how it comes to Raja Ampat, which I made it to once (there currents weren't strong, but they were common and often in was needful to fin into one awhile, which is tedious and a strain on us out-of-shape chubby folks).

2.) You mentioned a fair number of nudibranchs; how much focus on the dives was on macro? In Raja Ampat I was surprised by how much focus there was on macro (granted, I expected the pigmy sea horses), and how many macro subjects there were.

 

[tursiops]

drrich2, there were some currents, but we never had to swim into them. If an adverse current popped up, we'd turn around and go with it...sometimes quite exhilarating. This is the advantage of a guided dive with a tender overhead to pick you up; you literally "go with the flow" and see whatever you see.

Fair amount of macro, especially on walls and in low viz. No dive was specifically a "marco" dive but we were alerted in the dive briefing that was a good site for nudis, for example. Our lady on the trip who wa a nudi fanatic was quite happy, and those who don't care about nudis just swam on by.

 

[also_anon_dc]

Our last morning involved being off the boat by 10am. This was the second trip-glitch. Our transfers were to the Phuket airport, but nobody had a flight before 8:40pm that day, with most being later than that. We made last-minute (extra-cost) arrangements for our taxis to the airport to take us shopping and to lunch on the way to the airport, but this only used up some of the considerable extra time on hand. This could have worked out better if we had not already done our Phuket touring prior to the dive trip; we had no desire to do the same tour again. Not clear how to do this better in the future.

I would arrange with a nearby resort to have a day pass and/or rent a room for the day. That's what I usually do for Red Sea trips.

 

[Centrals]

What is your point? We were not there during these conditions you link to. The possibility of such conditions is why we had a particle counter with us.

What is the point of having a particle counter if the issue did not concern you in the first place?

 

[tursiops]

What is the point of having a particle counter if the issue did not concern you in the first place?

Yes, that's what I said.

 

[Centrals]

I would arrange with a nearby resort to have a day pass and/or rent a room for the day. That's what I usually do for Red Sea trips.

I had done that on many occasions whether it was inbound or outbound.
Several of us sharing a room because of the late flight.
More than one way to skin a cat. No big deal but does require planning.

 

[tursiops]

At many airports getting there early would not have been a problem. HKT surprised us with its layout, facilities, and rules; we could not drop out bags until 3 hours before our flight, amd there were no lounges prior to passport control. So much for flying business class but sitting on one's luggage for several hours...

We are not likely to have another trip to Thailand, but now that I know how HKT works, it would be easy to plan around it. But one has to know...