Last Wednesday I set off for my next big adventure to South East Asia and Micronesia. After an uneventful flight from Sydney to Phuket, I jumped in a taxi and made my way to Patong beach and Scubacat, the dive company owned and operated by Sarah Kench. I arrived to a very warm welcome by Sarah who gave me the run down on what I was in for over the next few days. I got in touch with Sarah from a list of dive outlets supplied to me by PADI Asia Pacific, when Sarah heard about the scholarship and my three days free in Phuket , said she had the perfect opportunity for me.

Scubacat annually runs a Reef Check diver program, in which children from the Concordia International School in Shanghai (CISS), come to Phuket and undertake their Reef Check Eco Diver Course. Some of the kids on board this year have come the year before, with a few being veterans having attended the course three years running. The majority of them however where not only new to the reef check program, but to diving altogether. The children were undertaking their PADI Open Water and Advanced Open Water in conjunction with the Reef Check course during their stay.

The whole MV Scubacat team. Left to Right: Terry , Stuart , Noah , Kelsa , Joel , myself, Andrew , Paul s, Anthony , Jane , Katie , Dana , Jennifer , Andy , Michelle , Quincy , and Lauren l. The photo was taken by our chef.

It is the perfect program for getting the young kids of 12-16 years enthusiastic about conservation and protection of the underwater ecosystem. Throughout the course the children are put through a peak performance buoyancy course to hone their hovering and manoeuvring skills when navigating fragile coral reefs, undertake lectures on fish, invertebrate, and coral disease identification, and learn about other harmful impacts to coral reefs. They learn about sampling substrates, running and sampling transects lines, and undertake a minimum of 25 dives all within the short space of 8 days. Not only this they record all the data that they collect underwater according to the globally standardised Reef Check methodology, which is then entered into a Reef Check database.

Sarah had organised for me to stay in a local hotel right behind the store on my first night in Phuket. The next day I awoke for the 7:30am pick up to the day boat that was to take me to the live aboard MV Scubacat moored in a bay off Koh Racha Yai Island.

Aboard the day boat I sat and chatted to the excited divers, swapping stories of the best dives and creatures that we had seen. After a two hour ride I was picked up in a little inflatable and welcomed onto my floating home for the next 3 days. Joel Klammer and Paul Adams are both teachers at CISS and certified Reef Check instructors. Along with the CISS teachers Terry Umphenour and Jennifer Zimbrick, as well as Stuart Robinson of Scubacat, and all the kids on board, my home away from home was a busy place indeed.

My room during my stay. Everyone was nice and gave me the biggest bed.

After throwing my bags down I was quickly donning my scuba gear and plunged into the very warm 30 degree water with the teachers and kids. Over the three days I dived with the group, filming as much as I could and observing them collect data. I have to say they all preformed fantastically.

Paul jumping in off the back of the boat

The dive team descends!

Koh Racha Yai has some splendid reefs and has been a very popular dive site for many years. This year sadly has been a very warm year and has stayed around the 30° – 31° mark for the past 6 weeks. This has caused massive bleaching to occur across the reefs.  I would estimate it at around 90-95%. With my video or camera in hand, dive after dive, I was shocked at the level of bleaching that I was seeing before me. I can only describe it as gliding over snow capped peaks.  It was a surreal experience. Huge Porites sp. colonies blanched a ghostly white would appear like beacons in the distance, fields of Acropora sp. totally bleached would lie below me, it was so sad to see.

Photo courtesy of Paul Adams.

One of the larger bleached colonies. At least we have the kids keen to help find a solution to events such as this!

However the reef was still alive with small hidden critters if you looked closely, the two night dives that I did were great fun. I always feel like I am hovering above the surface of the moon as I swim along the ocean bottom in a sphere of light with only darkness surrounding me. Morays, decorator crabs, octopus, lionfish, and turtles were just some of the sightings over my 3 days there.

My time aboard the MV Scubacat with CISS flew by all too quickly; with 10 dives in 2 ½ days I spent the majority of my time underwater! When I wasn’t under the surface I was eating the delicious food made for us by the two lovely Thai cooks on board, learning more and more about the course and how it got underway from Terry, Joel, Paul, and Stuart, or watching the squid boats light up the horizon at night. I had a truly fantastic time. A special thanks to Sarah for all your help and generosity, Stuart, and the whole Scubacat team, Joel, Paul, Terry, and Jennifer, and all the kids from CISS onboard for hosting me and showing great time. Over the three days I learned so much and gained some important insights into the state of coral reefs. It was a trip I would readily do again! Thanks so much.

One of the squid boats with it’s hanging high powered light bulbs to bring the squid to the lines it hangs.

The teachers from CISS and myslef. From left to right: Joel, myself, Paul, Jennifer, and Terry