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The
no moon party, Pattaya Thailand
By:
Diederik
Beker, IDC-Staff Instructor: 259746
A
couple of days ago someone told me about a new event that Mermaids dive centre
would be hosting. The events at Mermaids are alway s
interesting so I decided to visit the dive centre and have a look. As soon as I
heard what the event was I had signed up within a few seconds. This was going to
be awesome!
The
people are all excited as I look around the dive centre. There is one sentence
that keeps on reappearing: “This night is going to be awesome!” And as we
later found out, it was. Preparing for the day by loading up the bus everyone is
helping out, they want to get to the boat as fast as possible and start the day
of diving, or rather ‘the night of diving’. Everybody is talking about the
night’s events and as people run in between the dive centre and 7-eleven,
getting supplies to keep them awake during the night, the excitement rises with
every minute. After driving down to the boat and loading everything on, the
boats engines spring to life and everyone knows that there is no turning back.
As we see the pier disappear into the horizon behind us we are told what the
night is going to bring us.
 Diving
a wreck on itself is very exciting, but probably the most exciting event of this
night is diving a wreck when it is almost dark. Dropping down into the water
everything already seems darker then normal. Now descending to the HTMS Khram
which lies in twenty-seven meters of seawater it gets darker every meter. With a
torch in hand, me and my buddy explore the wreck. I thought that I knew this
wreck seen as I have dived it quite a few times. But now without light I feel
like I have no idea where I am. As the sun continues to fall, fish that you
don’t see during the day appear from dark corners and the outline of the wreck
disappears into the night. Me and my buddy finish our dive when we reach one of
the set limits and we start to make our ascent. On our three minute safety stop
the last rays of sun disappear and the night is completely upon us. This was
only one of the three dives that we did that night. The other two dives were
done on the beautiful island ‘Koh Man Wichai’, at midnight and at four AM.
As we get ready for our second and third dive, everyone is psyched about diving
in the middle of the night. They don their equipment and switch on their
torches. As me and my buddy jump in the water my eyes try to adjust as fast as
they can, but it takes a while before I can clearly see. Now being able to see
what lies beneath the surface of the ocean at night I am amazing about the
variety of creatures once again. At first a Cuttlefish swims by only half a
meter in front of my mask and I feel like I am in a National Geographic
Documentary. Not long after countless Starfish are spotted on the sand beneath
me and some Blue Spotted Rays fly by. Also spotted by another buddy team is a
Bamboo Shark swimming around. Coming up from the dives everyone is excitedly
talking to each other about what they saw.
As
we do dives at six PM, midnight and four AM obviously there is quite a bit of
time in between. But for not one second did I have the feeling that anyone was
bored, at least I wasn’t. In between the first two dives we watch some movies
and documentaries about diving wrecks and about people making fifteen hour
decompression dives. Being quite pleased with the fact that I do not dive for
that long at
once
our food is served. This time it is our usual food cooked by our lovely on board
cook. After dinner some of the guys decide to go for a swim and me and a friend
grab the DPV laying at the back of the boat. With our mask on and snorkel  in
we drive to the island. Looking down the DPV an amazing sight appears. The
bio-luminescence is everywhere as the motion of the propeller makes it light up.
We spin around in circles for about fifteen minutes before we decide it is time
to head back. In between the second and third dive we have an amazing barbecue
with hotdogs and hamburgers. After having eaten some of the guys fall asleep.
The others linger in groups having conversations and
some
try to find fishing rods to go on a fishing expedition.
As
the sun begins to rise again almost everyone is asleep. Since I am still awake I
cannot help myself but take pictures of everyone sleeping and the funny
expressions that most of them have. Getting back to port everyone starts waking
up and people rush downstairs to pack away their equipment. Getting back to the
dive centre everyone slowly disappears to bed. The few words that are spoken are
“That was awesome” and “I told you that was going to be great!”.
Definitely an event that is up for repetition.
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