Diving Ko A Yam & Hin Daeng

Next day (28th Feb) came sunny and calm, we heaved up anchor early morning and started towards Phuket again. At abt 10am we were passing Ko A Yam and Ko Bulon and decided to try out the waters there as well.

Ko A Yam

North of Ko A Yam is a steep cliff drop down to 20m and we decided to start from there and circle the Island. The current was from north to south. The Island is consisting of a few rocks and one looks like a white old man that reminds me of the fertility figure I saw in Jeju Island South Korea, I reckon the white color comes from bird droppings.

Sea anemone and coral

Caught the hand in the cookie jar

Corals

Sea anemone and "pla katon"

Giant clam shell

Anyway, off we went with Saini and found very murky water with visibility abt 3-5m. On the other hand the fish was there plentiful. The north side of the Island was mostly rocks and corals but when I ventured to the south side it was like a green pasture, corals covered in green undulating as far as I could see (not far). I took what pictures I could as my flash was out of comission. Soon enough I was out of air and it was time to surface. We climbed onboard the tender, headed back and continued our voyage towards Phuket.

Hin Daeng

Hin Daeng underwater video

In the afternoon we were passing Hin Daeng (Red Rock) and stopped there also for a dive. Hin Daeng is a small outcrop consisting of 3 small islets jutting out of the sea in the middle of nowhere. The islet goes steeply down to 60m so anchoring was not an option. Fortunately the Universe were with us and the sea was almost flat like a mirror.

Huge puffer fish

Saini and the puffer fish

Once again we launched our tenderboat and loaded our dive gear. First me and Saini went down and the visibility was great abt 20m. The islet was surrounded by patrolling Barracuda's and the bottom consisted of rocky ridges going down to the depths. Every time we passed a ridge we came upon huge groupers, I would estmate 20kg per fish. They were quite shy and swam into hiding as soon as they saw us.

Fish eggs

Saini and me was clicking away on our cameras, fish was plentiful. Then it was time to surface and next dive was with Saini, Rajaram and Kalpu in shallow waters. I stayed on the tender. Once they were up we stowed our gear and resumed voyage. At about midnight we arrived in front of Phuket Town and dropped anchor for the night.

Soft coral