I can still not quite believe that it was only six years ago. It was at the end of the low season, in October 1998, that I first set foot on Koh Lanta. In those days my idea of holiday planning was limited to a guide book, brought along but not necessarily opened. This might have contributed to me having to admit that a dive holiday to Koh Lanta in October was not the best of ideas. After struggling, on a three stop budget flight, all the way from Europe with 25 kg of diving equipment I was faced with the fact that the Koh Lanta dive shops didn’t open until the November 1st. However, praise Buddha, my luck was about to change. I met a Dutch couple and a two Swedish guys, who had also come to Lanta to dive. We found Frank, a big friendly German guy who ran one of the small dive shops on the island. We asked, prayed and begged him to take us out to some of the dive sites. Frank was not to keen but when he discovered that Dani, a Divemaster, had arrived on the island a bit earlier than usual, he agreed to take us. I still sometimes read my log book from those days. The Koh Ha caves, the deep drop offs of at Hin Mouang and the fabulous Hin Daeng labyrinths. It was all fantastic! The last notes I scribbled down in my log book was “I will return to this island again”. And so I did.

February 24, 2006, Thai airways, TG 575 successfully landed at Don Muang airport in Bangkok, setting my wife and myself safely on Thai ground. Not so much diving equipment this time, but any man who ever travelled with a woman knows what severe luggage overweight means. Having carted a rather impressive collection of bags, boxes and suitcases from International to Domestic, a walk only slightly short of a normal marathon, a friendly lady was on hand to check us in on the flight to Krabi. Sheer luxury!! An hour and a half later we landed on the modern Krabi airport just 40 minutes from Koh Lanta. A far cry from my back packing days when I spent hours and hours on the road. I wondered what ever happened to the water buffaloes that, last time I was there, were peacefully chewing grass where development had now put modern landing strips.

Well, development has not only changed the water buffalos grazing ground. For some reason it had also made me give higher priority to the holiday planning, which basically meant that I left all the arrangements to my wife. We (she) even had a direct transfer booked directly from the airport to the resort. And yes, it was waiting outside the terminal, successfully booked and right on time. Everything arranged from the same island where you six years earlier, no matter what you ordered in a restaurant, got fried noodles (unless you ordered fried noodles, of course!). 40 minutes later we reached the first ferry and shortly afterwards we were in our bungalow on Lanta.

Koh Lanta, the island I had yearned for since 1998. Already day two on the island we went to Saladan to find the dive shop where we (OK, my wife) had booked our diving. Also in Saladan things had changed. Only two of the dive shops from 1998 were still there, but several new ones had opened. We enjoyed the air-conditioned shop, and let ourselves be impressed by the modern, well maintained equipment and comfortable boats, but most of all we were happy to hear that the fantastic dive sites were still there, unspoiled and beautiful as ever.

On our first day we went to one of my favourites from last time, Koh Ha. My wife, who had not been there before fell in love with the spot long before we even entered the water. The beautiful steep islands that in some mysterious Thai way seem to rise up from the ocean, the small white sandy beach and the crystal clear water that makes it possible to clearly see the corals 10-15 meters below. Our dive master, a lovely Scandinavian girl called Lina, told us that Koh Ha means “five islands”. I could definitely count to 6 islands so I guess that the person who once named the place never did too well in mathematics.

The first dive was to be made at Koh Ha 1. I was eager to get into the water but with the authority that only comes with a blue PADI cap, Lina insisted on us first making our safety checks. My wife’s equipment was, of course, perfectly prepared, while I had to swallow my pride and ask one of the helpful Thai boat boys to turn my air on. Bugger, I was supposed to be the Mr No Mistake Experienced diver. Air on and everything in place, we entered the water. We made the small circular sign with our hands that in dive language means that life in general feels great. On a sign from Lina we emptied our BCD’s and started the descent. It took me no more than a minute or two to realise that the corals were just as beautiful as I remembered. In an instant we were surrounded by hundreds of different kinds of fish, in colours hard to imagine. Emerging from a narrow “swimthrough” at the beginning of the dive we were suddenly face to face with a gentle looking turtle, who for some reason, decided to follow us. Fascinated as we were by the turtle, we almost missed a huge school of rainbow runners heading straight for us. At our maximum depth of 25 m we rounded a corner just in time to catch sight of a couple of black tipped reef sharks cruising along in the distance. After about 10 minutes when we ascended to 18 m we saw the first of many ugly but fascinating creatures we were to encounter during our holiday. A huge Moray eel, mouth open, enjoying his (her?) morning mouth hygiene being taken care of by a busy little cleaning fish. We also spent a few minutes watching a funny small “Yellow cube box fish”, that in a typical Yellow cube Box fish way seemed to curse the day he was born a fish, shaped as he was, like a rudderless mini container with a tail instead of a fin.

During the surface interval I was made aware that the fantastic breakfast on the way out was not a one off thing. The cook was a genius! On top deck a three dish Thai lunch was waiting, from then on this dive boat became one of my favourite Thai restaurants. Good food surrounded by the beauty of Koh Ha after a great dive, what more could a man ask for?

For the second dive the boat took us around the corner to Koh Ha Yai, back to the caves I clearly remembered from 1998. From my first Open Water course I remembered that recreational divers are not supposed to swim into something where you do not have open surface above you, but in this case we only had to cheat a meter or two. Once inside, the cave opens up like a big cathedral and you can actually surface inside the island. To avoid ruining our dive profile completely we did not surface inside this time, but just being there looking down at the sunlight entering the cave beats most diving experiences.

The next day we spent at the resort, lying by the pool (where were all the pools 6 years ago?) looking out over the Indian Ocean while being entertained by enthusiastic Open Water students making their first pool dive. As we had booked further diving the following day the bar bill only contained one beer each as we paid and made our way to bed.

Our wakeup call the following morning was one of the resort girls doing her best to break the door down. I could have sworn I had only slept a few minutes. The pick up was due to leave at 6.40 and the boat for Hin Daeng and Hin Mouang at 7 am. Right then I must admit that I could easily have been persuaded to change my mind and go for some elephant riding or orchid farm visiting a bit later in the day but my wife’s cheerful singing in the bathroom told me this was not an option.

Semiconscious I reached the pick up, survived the trip to the dive shop and eventually even made it to the dive boat. Once again Lina was our dive master and fit as a fiddle she enthusiastically started some kind of pre breakfast briefing. I desperately looked for a button to turn her off, and was just prepared to throw myself into the water when my life was saved by a huge cup of black coffee. Slowly my ability to focus on the surrounding world came back, and after a short while I was even tucking into the wonderful breakfast.

Digesting the excessive food intake, and protected by high factor sun screen I went back to sleep on the top sun deck. I knew nothing more until I was brought back to consciousness in time for the dive briefing. This time it took me no more than 30 seconds to wake up, as I could already see the three peeks of Hin Daeng breaking the surface a short distance away. The first dive, however, was to be made at Hin Mouang about two hundred meters from Hin Daeng.

We had not even let go of the descent line before I was made aware that this was worth all the pain suffered getting out of bed a few hours earlier. Below us was the big purple rock, leaving no one in doubt where it got the name from. Completely covered by beautiful purple soft coral it was a fantastic sight. No wonder this dive site is ranked as one of the best in the world. Hin Mouang is the deepest drop off in Thailand, and after descending down to 28 m we could still look down at the wall hitting the bottom 30 meters below us. And as this wasn’t enough we were surrounded by Giant tunas and Rainbow runners. Above us, slowly cruising close to the surface, a large school of Great barracudas and on a sandy spot at 30 meters depth a leopard shark lay dozing on the bottom. Fifty minutes later, after breaking the surface, my wife took her regulator out of her mouth and stated: “It can’t become any better than this!” She was wrong!

Dive two, at Hin Daeng, was planned to a maximum depth of 22 meters. Again I recalled my old Open Water manual saying “Plan the dive, and dive the plan”. Maybe dive master Lina didn’t read the same manual, because we never came close to our plan. We started the descent slowly down the line. Already at 10 m I saw my wife’s eyes grow bigger while looking at something behind me. For a short moment I suspected her focusing on some good looking young diving instructor, with shaved head, black wetsuit and a big watch passing by, but fortunately this wasn’t the case (this time!). I turned around and less than 3 meters away from me, still approaching, were two giant Manta Rays. It felt as if they were about to crash into me, when they simultaneously made a perfect roll and avoided me by inches. Of course we stopped our descent to watch them, expecting them to disappear around one of the corners, but they did not. They just stayed with us, and after about 15 minutes they were joined by two more. Just hanging there in the water at 10-12 meters we saw them perform their loops and rolls as if they wanted to show us their entire register. After 55 minutes which felt like a short moment Lina made the sign for the safety stop. Surfacing after exactly 60 minutes, we realised that we hadn’t moved more than 10 meters during the entire dive. A dive of a lifetime, even if we didn’t see one inch of Hin Daeng. But of course we went back a couple of days later and realised that, with or without Manta Ray, Hin Daeng is as close to heaven under water as one can possibly get.