Ko Ha

Following the wreck dive, we went another 3 hours out into the ocean to a group of 5 small limestone islands called Ko Ha (five islands in Thai).  Here is a fantastic dive site called the Cathedral.  It consists of two scalloped out rooms at the base of the vertical wall below the surface.  Each room actually extends vertically above the waterline, so there is air above and thus is safe for divers.  A window connects the two rooms.  I insisted on including this dive site on our program just because it is really fun, and the students agree.

Approaching Ko Ha, but still at least an hour away.

Here is the dive crew loading tanks onto the boat before we left this morning.

One diver penetrating through a school of fish.

A school of fish at the entrance to one of the rooms.

That's Adam approaching one of the rooms.

Other students in the room.

And here come more.

The students swam through the window from one room to the other.  The window was at 5 meters depth.  The sea floor at the rooms is only about 15 meters.

I'm not sure who the character on the left is, but I have my suspicions.

 Here are students swimming out of the second room after having gone through the connecting window.

The surrounding reef was really interesting with unusual rock formations and biota.

 Barrel sponge.

A stand of whip coral.

A giant moray eel hiding in the coral rock and behind bubble coral.

Adam, Manoj, Jordan and instructor Karen.

Zach and Mor Mark.  Zach is above.

Here are the students doing their safety stop.  To minimize the possibility of decompression sickness, it's standard procedure for all divers to stop their ascent 5 meters below the surface for 3 minutes.

Soft and hard corals.

The reef colors are quite stunning.

Our return to the pier after these fantastic dives appropriately was marked with a rainbow.