The Junk..... Thai liveaboard....more photos

[Woody]

http://www.thejunk.com

Lets hope its nothing like what they call it!


"See" you all in a couple of weeks!

[Baz]

Enjoy...

Photos & Review on your return those are the rulzezzzs

[Woody]

But of course! Why dya think I bought me camera and started this thread

[Steppenwolf]

Have a great time. If the itinerary is similar to the one I had on the Marco Polo in 2006, you will see fish and coral in abundance, even though there is very little by the way of wrecks. The visibility in the dive sites of the Andaman Sea is usually 40m+.

[Woody]

Well, only just back today, our clothes suitcase is in Japan at the moment but Heathrow says it should bve with us tomorrow!

The Junk was a great Liveaboard absolutely loved it! we dived off a RIB most of the time, who waited around for us to finish our dives, there was 18 guests on board most of them English, the dive crew were all English too!
The cabins were a great size not cramped really at all, and the food was awesome!

I'd thoroughly recommend them and would definately go again if I rtan out of ideas of other places to go to!

On our 5 days diving we saw 4 different solo mantas, one of them twice, octopus, seahorses, turtles, nurse sharks, lionfish, seasnakes, crayfish/lobsters, xmas tree worms galore, and of course all the usual fish!

The viz was mostly excellent! It hardly rained, if it did was only in the evenings. As someone said earlier, most of the dives were over 25m, we did 4 a day, but only 3 night dives and I did 2 on day 4 as I fancied a lie in!!

I'm trying to cut down my photos, and promise to get some up to you all in a few days, once I have also had a go at playtng with them in Photoshop!

[Steppenwolf]

Glad you had a great time. I told you that you'll see lots of sea life in that area. In fact, on most dives the time available seemed too short to see what was on offer. Did you spot the occasionally seen and usually solo Clown Triggerfish?

[Woody]

Oh yes, I was lucky to get one on my left after taking a photo of an oriental sweetlips, he was popping his trigger up and down! I got a shot of it, but it was a bit underexposed, will put that one up when I get time to process them the best I can in the evenings, we also were fortunate to get a huge shoal of batfish on one dive, which looks awesome! Also a school of barracuda, and a huge one on its own, an angler fish too. I also laid next to a leopard shark to get a good shot too. So many Manta shots too

[Woody]

One for mr. Steppenwolf!

[Steppenwolf]

Thank you Woody. That is a very good shot of my favourite fish.

[Woody]

I must start this by thanking everyone who helped me with my camera and ikelite equipment, I wouldnt have been the same without your helpful advice, thank you so much.

We were picked up from the airport by The Junk team and taken to their office to fill in relevant forms and pick up any extra gear that was needed, including our free Junk T shirt . We then had about 4 hours to spare so they then left us in Kata Beach, where we visited the lovely beach there & sipped a marguerita or 2.
We had a bit of fun bartering for a Singha vest or 2, we then walked back down to the centre of town, about a 3 minute walk. I was then just off the road in a car park when a small man rode up on his moped beeping at me, I tried to move out of the way but he then started to speak to me! Sorry what!? I said, he said that I had left my camera at his shop up the road! He insisted to go and get it for me and bring it back! My God! I couldn't believe what I had done, how stupid, when he came back I gave him a huge hug and a good tip, as my holiday wouldnt have been the same without his honesty!
After a Thai Masasage and a bit of lunch, we were then picked up by the Junk minibus and taken to Patong Bay where we were taken on a RIB to board the Junk. We were shown to our AC ensuite cabin, we had a huge double bed (well it felt huge to what I was imagining!). Later we sat in the big mess which had a large LCD TV screen and a fridge for our beer! We were briefed on the usual and introduced to the whole crew. All 18 guests were split into 3 groups of which we were put on a rota for the dinghy. The dive crew were all English, old mad Mick, young Laura, Keith the English Scot, and not forgetting Martin the videoman! I was with Keith and my 4 Dutch buddies (and my wife, Lisa, should she ever decide to dive again)

Day 1
We were all awoken at about 7am by the sound of a cockerel and clapping, strange!?
One hour after we were awoke and briefed it was time for the first group to be taken to the dive site, only a minute away.
We did usually one dive every 3.5 hours
The 4 dives we did on day one were:

Similan Islands near island #4
Morning Glory
Elephant Head
Ao Guak night dive

Highlights of the day were a turtle, octupus, school of batfish, nurse shark, mantis shrimp, angler fish, barracuda, spiny lobsters and banded sea snakes. The topography at Elephant stone was awesome, huge boulder like, swimthroughs

After each dive I recharged my equipment and uploaded my pictures to my laptop. Thru the week I eventually ditched the photoshop upload software in favour of taking RAW and JPG and transferring it all manually, deleting the JPGs that were no good, and keeping all the RAW as back up, should I ever want to work on them. Quite often I forgot to zoom in slightly to avoid the vignetting of the wide angle lens which has forced me to crop a few pics, as I still havent found a way to blend in the corners accurately. (Any comments for improvement on this appreciated)

Herre are Day 1 pictures below, I've decided to stamp them, even tho they may not be that good, I think its best to start off on the right foot, you never know how good they may get one day!














Each night over dinner we were shown the video footage from the day, this is when we found out that it was one of the boat crew actually doing the very good cockerel imitation and slapping his behind! He did this every morning a few times!
The rest of the night mainly involved listening to our CD's or iPods thru their system and sitting around chatting and raiding the beer fridge until all was drunk at around 11ish and then bed!


Day 2 to follow......