The most memorable option for me was the Night Dive. We entered the water with torches and were told that we would see a completely different set of creatures from during the day - the predators mostly come at night.....mostly. It's true, we did see a different range of animals, and the scenery was slightly different; the urchins had moved from their hiding patches to cover the top surfaces of rocks. But, the most amazing experience for me came courtesy of a much simpler organism. Once I had attained neutral buoyancy and was hovering at a fairly constant level above the sea bed, I stayed there and took in my surroundings. In every direction there was a thick congealed blackness that was only slightly disturbed by the consumption of the faint rays of light from our torches. If you turned away from everyone and switched your own light off, there was an immediate strong feeling of being very alone. The only sound accompanying this was from your own breathing, which due to the regulator sounded remarkably like Darth Vader in the midst of an amorous prank phone call. Without the feeling of ground beneath your feet, air blowing on your face, or being able to see anything in front of you, you feel slightly disorientated. Then, when I had achieved this glorious state of disillusionment, I moved my hands in front of me and consequently disturbed the phosphorescent algae. It was like looking at an empty universe and then creating billions of stars with every movement of your hands. Apologies for sounding like a hippy with delusions of grandeur but that's the only way I can describe the sensation. Billions of tiny stars exploded into life wherever you hands moved and then dimmed into nothing again when left be. I spent the remainder of the dive seeking out predators with repeated moments of creating galaxies, until the air was nearly gone from our tanks, and we surfaced near the shore. A few of us then remained to float on our backs in the shallows and admire the crystal clear view of the stars above.
The other dive which I thoroughly enjoyed and this time for a more simple male reason of playing with toys, was the DPV dive - "Dive Propulsion Vehicle." The benefit of these things is a complete lack of effort required to see more area than on an unaided dive, and spend more time underwater (obviously air is used more economically when something else is doing all the work). The main benefits to us however, were pulling barrel rolls, loop-the-loops, & generally flying around the dive sites like Superman.
We celebrated the end of our advanced course with a free dive courtesy of the school, and a loan of their underwater camera (all of the photos used for the blog entries for this island were taken in this session). The rest of our time was spent fairly evenly divided between doing nothing on the beach, planning our departure to the West Coast of Thailand, and generally having a laugh with the staff from the dive school.
Ko Nang Yuan seems to be rarely visited by the usual Lonely Planet crew of backpackers, and through development will distance itself further and further from everyone but the rich. It has already taken on a dream like quality for me as, I struggle to accept that the water was as clear as I remembered, the islands were that beautiful, and the sky really was those colours.
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