Thai Cleaner Shrimp Photo: Dana Africa

It is 5AM and my jet lag will not let me sleep any longer. Out on the aft deck, the stern light casts an eerie, turquoise glow on the black ocean.

I sit mesmerized as out of the depths stream balls of bait fish are pursued by something large and unseen. A cadre of cuttlefish hover nearby feeding on stragglers. Sinuously, a four-foot sea snake cruises by. The Andaman Sea already has my undivided attention.

Ocean Rover made her maiden voyage this year. She's the first Thai built vessel that meets all international maritime standards. She's a born and bred dive boat. A dive deck you can wear fins on, camera tables you can put ALL your stuff on, and enough 110V plug-ins to make "Christmas Vacation" look pre-Edison. All the cabins have their own toilet and shower, hot water maker, and AC control. The espresso machine at the snack-bar on deck rivals any java found in Oregon.

And then there's the chef - Somnuk. Roll the word around your tongue. The Thai food king says, "I'm nice to you...you want HOT? Go ask crew for taste..." Start with sticky white rice, add meat chicken or fish, then go all manner of curry, and peppers. I quickly learn to dip from crews' bowls with caution. Breakfast is full American style, lunch is a sit-down affair, and then therešs the baked goods around mid-afternoon in the form of caramel cake, brownies, and chocolate-chip cookies. With four to five dives offered a day, you can eat with abandon.

Some adjustments will be made this summer to smooth out Ocean Rover's ride in the open ocean - we hit a couple of days of pretty rough seas, which unfortunately earned Ocean Rover the unkind name "Ocean Roller". The addition of ballast and stabilizers should resolve the problem.

"Shrimp that defy description, like the Harlequin or Mantis, tease you into blowing off an entire roll of film in a square foot of reef."

The diving in Thailand can be diverse. It all depends on the whim of the sea. The Similan Islands are protected marine sanctuaries, but fishing and finning in the surrounding seas have taken their toll. There have been close encounters with whale sharks, but not on our trip. We were treated to a huge pod of spinner dolphins while traveling between islands. If you go to Thailand to dive with large animals in mind, you may be disappointed. However, if your main goal is to die and go to macro-heaven, you have arrived.

Shrimp that defy description, like the Harlequin or Mantis, tease you into blowing off an entire roll of film in a square foot of reef. I saw Banded Pipefish, Harlequin Ghost Pipefish, and Yellow Seahorses. I lost count of the species of nudibranchs - faves being the Halgerda tessellata and Chromodoris kuniei. Also, witnessed mating dragon nudibranchs. The anemones are loaded with a dizzying variety of shrimp, anemone fish, and crabs. Even the crinoids host an array of little surprises under their feathery arms. Armies of urchins, live shells hunting, thousands of glassy sweepers coat the reef. Coral heads serve as nurseries and hideaways for the shy fish like Spotted Sweetlips, Clown Coris, and the young Banded Butterfly. Tiny juvenile Ornate Wrasse hang like bits of leafy debris, challenging your eyes to admit they are fish. The divemasters kept a running log of all the animals we saw. There were hundreds.

We headed North into Burma. At the stinky little port of Kawthaung, the officials came aboard, took our passports and left young Om with us until we returned. He was terribly polite, and fascinated by our dedication to diving. He blended in with the crew and took to winning the daily checkers match on the aft deck. When I expressed disappointment at the lack of sharks at the inaccurately named Silvertip Bank, he was not surprised - the fishermen had been out last year and finned all the sharks they could find. But we did get to meet Max.

Mark Strickland, our guide and photo-pro, has a thing going with Max. She's a ten-foot Tawny Nurse Shark with half a pectoral fin missing. Max loves Mark. He greets her toting the familiar five-gallon bucket with a screw-top lid. She puts her face up to his mask and gently pushes him away from the bucket. He holds his ground and nudges her back. She uses her whole body to get in front of the container, wraps her jaws around the lid and tries to open it. Mark circles around and puts his shoulder into her side, freeing the bucket. She lays her head over his arm, and he shrugs her off. As she relents, he lovingly hand feeds her. Retrieving another fish, he lures her along in front of the line of kneeling divers, strobes flashing like Fourth of July. Max is unfazed.

After three or four whole jacks to sate her enormous appetite, Max backs off and lets Mark scent the water with a dead fish, hoping to draw in more sharks. We get three White Tips and one other scrawny nurse shark, then a thirty-pound Potato Cod joins in. Pretty tame as shark-feeds go, but to watch Max and Mark, heads together and fins all a-tangle, is to witness art.

On my back, staring at unfamiliar constellations, a shooting star cascades past. Balmy night air, a warm glow from my Thai food filled belly, the gentle motion of the ocean persuades me to forgo my bunk and curl up on the deck for the night. Or maybe itšs the massive nitrogen build-up from 30 + dives that has caused me to go stuporous at 9 PM...whichever, I am so relaxed.

by Dana Africa,
WetDawg Correspondent