Our Coralseekers Day in Phuket

Our CoralSeekers Day

Phuket is a popular destination for divers and snorkellers, with some of the most beautiful coral reefs untouched by human hands (and fins) in this part of the world. The only thing that could make Phuket a more spectacular place to snorkel would be to have your own tour guides and just a small group of your friends and family to snorkel with. That was our exact experience with CoralSeekers. For a fee which in American terms is very small indeed, CoralSeekers will contract a boat according to the size of your group and take you to some of the most pristine snorkelling locations around Phuket. They purposely avoid locations frequented by the dive boats and the other large companies that take huge groups of snorkellers out, choosing instead small reefs where only 10-15 people can snorkel at a time. These reefs are largely ignored by the big companies and are therefore undamaged by human contact and filled with fish you might not see in other locations.

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Such a small group as we were (the three of us and two guides), that even the moray eels, usually quite shy, felt at ease swimming with us. Our guide Mark told us that in two years of taking groups out, he had only seen two morays swimming in the daytime. On our day, we saw four, three out swimming, and one in the usual position of sticking out from a hole in a rock. Of course, most interesting for me was coming face to face with one.

Now there are no photos to verify this story, so you will just have to trust me on this one (well, Jayne witnessed it too, so you have both of us to believe). We were swimming in a shallow area through a "canyon" formed by an area between two large rocks. The ground was about a metre below us and covered with large rocks and coral. As the tide came in and out, I was worried about making contact with the coral with a fin or my chest (ouch!). As I came up over a rock, our friend the eel also came up from the other side. For a long second we stared at each other in equal horror, afraid to move.

One of the eels we spotted,
about 2-3 metres below us. (bottom right).

A school of squid or cuttlefish (click to enlarge).

He was about a metre long, and his mouth was opened revealing that frightening set of sharp teeth. As he drew his head back, my only thought was, "He's gonna bite me." It was more a statement of fact than anything else. At this point I was pushing backward with my arms to put some distance between us. Instead of biting me, however, he simply turned and swam away. I don't know if I was lucky, blessed, or over-reacting. But both him and I got away unscathed and a little wiser about each other.

Other than the eel incident, the only other discomfort was the tiny invisible creatures in the water which took little nips at us (it wasn't just during snorkelling; they were also hanging around the beach in Phuket when we were swimming). We thought they were little jellyfish, some of the bites hurt so much. But for the most part, they didn't even leave marks on us and the pain went away pretty quickly. (We have since been told these nasty little buggers are "sea lice" and common to the warm seas. There are lotions available to help protect against them (but we haven't tried them and make no recommendations.)

We saw many beautiful fish, and Sarah, who was actually afraid of swimming, had Mark with her all the time. She felt very safe and he pointed things out to her as he guided her around. Sarah probably had the best time of all of us.

If you want to snorkel and you want to have a day tailored to your own liking, contact CoralSeekers for a trip you will not forget.