Similan Island, 3-days diving trip

Headed for Khao Lak to meet with Martin and Christian again. I bought a ticket up there for 600 baht, air conditioned mini van, definitely cheaper than renting a private taxi for 3500 baht. Turned out that the minivan was just for picking up people around the island, we then got dumped at the side of a big intersection. 20 minutes later a big 30 year old bus stopped, and the guys shouted to me to get on it. Since I was not going to the end destination of the bus, I could not put my stuff in the luggage compartment under the bus and instead had to bring my backpack with my into the bus, which was already more or less full. Had to share the backseat with a guy in a wheel chair, which was collapsed but kept driving around the last 2 rows.

I knew more or less where to get off and followed the bus position on my GPS. At some point about 5 minutes before I had to get off, I went to the bus driver to tell him I wanted to get off in front of a super market in town. He said of course and kept driving through the city. I put my backpack on and fought my way to the front where the bus driver suddenly looked in the mirror and pulled over, "sorry boss, I forgot to stop". Arghhhh.
Now I was 3 km away from the diveshop I had to meet Martin at to take care of some practical stuff. When I got out of the bus, it started to rain and I ran for cover, right into a taxi pitstop place for all the taxi drivers. They asked me where I was going and they told me it would cost 150 baht to get there. Anywhere else it would have cost 20 baht to drive and I knew that, so I told them it was too expensive. Now I was standing there negotiating with the entire taxi staff of the city, around 30 guys. I put my backpack on the back and started walking, thinking it was not 3km as one of the guys had told me, that was just to justify their high price. Nope, that was not the case. It took me almost half an hour to get there, but at least I saved, well, I needed the exercise.
I got to the Wicked Dive shop, where I tried out my rental gear for the next few days, signed in and talked to the guy who I was going to dive with the next few days. Everything was settled and we were ready for departure next morning at 7.30
I went with Christian and Martin to their hotel where I would crash for the night. They had met some girl in town who could give them a very good price at this super big resort style hotel. I don't know how many pools the place had with pool bars and ocean view, nice. After a few drinks, we went out for dinner, since there was not a lot of people in the town, it seemed to be possible to bargain with any of the restaurants about what we wanted to pay for food. Of course we then end up ordering way too much in the end, so who is winning in the end?
Next morning we were picked up and driven to the dive shop to drop our luggage and then off to the boat. We got to meet the rest of the diving crew and the other divers, seemed like cool guys. The trip was a 3 day, 2 nights live-aboard dive trip to the Marine park near the Similan Islands about 70km off the West coast of Thailand in the Andaman sea.
A few minutes after departure there was a ceremony in the front of the ship where they would fire some fireworks to keep the bad spirits away, as they said because they are Thai and believe in it. Actually it was pretty cool beginning to the trip.
Most of the divers were German speaking and they were pretty surprised when Christian and Martin, who had spent some time in the Austrian Alps started singing after-skiing songs to get the party started. At least people started to smile, laugh and talk after that.
Last time I had been diving was almost a year ago for lobster in San Diego, and from what I could count I would have around 28 or 29 dives in the last 7 years, which is not a whole lot. Christian and another guy were taking their advanced diving certificates with their instructor Dani from Spain and master diver student Laura from Finland. Martin and I joined them for the first dive just to get in the water and everyone could asses peoples skills in the water. Most other divers had many more dives than me and much more recent dives.
Some guys were totally newbies, one only doing introduction diving on the entire trip. It took a few minutes before everything came back to me, got used to equalize the pressure again in the ears etc.
Interestingly enough, since I had my molars extracted a few years ago, something had changed with my sinus channels. It had become very difficult to equalize the left ear, but at least now I know what to be aware of.
The Similan island is a marine park, that is supposed to be one of the best places in Thailand to dive with many different underwater scenic setups.
Basically the 3 days consisted of continuous "dives, food, drinks, laughing, sleep". That sounds like my kind of day anyway, except the diving part, haha
The dives taken into account I told the instructors I did not want to hold up any of the more experienced divers, the more experience the less air is typically used under water.
Nothing more annoying if one in the group is using air like a vaccum cleaner and forces everyone to do short dives. I was diving with Dani and Laura and the 2 new advanced guys, and while they were doing their exercises, I got to explore the reefs a little bit on my own within sight of them, that worked out great.
One evening the entire ship was celebrating Dani's birthday, even though he did not get to spend the day with his wife, I think all of us made it a good evening for him.
I had 9 incredible dives, saw 100s of different fishes, turtles, sausages, lobsters, shrimps, all on very different environment like big boulders, sand bottoms, cliff walls, soft and hard corals.
There was one night dive and one wreck dive, all in all the best I have had so far, but I did not really dive that many interesting places, yet.
Some of the dives were done in pretty choppy water where the boat was going up and down 1 meter or so in the waves, that was a little interesting to say the least getting back on board.
The visibility was not the best on the wreck dive and when descending, we got pulled away with the current, had to go up and get new air bottles, and then went down again. But we got through it all with a helping hand from everyone, great feeling. The crew onboard was some of the coolest dive crew I have met anywhere, the divers were all very friendly people too.

After having been in their company for 3 days it was actually a little sad to have to part.
Talked to a couple of the instructors and they also said that this was one of very few trips where people really bonded and had so much social things going on as we had. I only have good words to say about Wicked Diving's crew, they simply rock. I owe my great experience to the two Thai people Gae and Tuc, Finnish Laura, Mexican Diego and especially Dani the Spainiard.
I also started keeping track of my dives for real for the first time since having gotten my certificate. Now I am ready to go a few more places on this trip and it helps a little with some proof that I have actually been underwater lately and can dive safely. Bloop Bloop Bloop.....