Diving in Thailand: King Cruiser wreck

Thailand, 12^th November, 2013

I just recently got back from a marveillous dive trip to Ao Nang in Thailand. This is the first account of the dives that I did on that trip. It is about an awsome wreck dive at what may be the most famous wreck in Thailand.

Icebreaker Ship Urho

This time I'm writing about the visit that I made to the icebreaker ship Urho in Helsinki. Cold, cold winter is on its way, and icebreakers are getting ready for their season of action. Now, I know this blog post has absolutely nothing to do with diving, but I'm writing it all the same. Simply because visiting the ship was so cool.

Icebreaker ship Urho

Vertical Underwater Current

Sometimes unpredictable forces of nature can turn a pleasant day of diving with a friend into a scary, even dangerous experience. This blog post is an account of a dive that I did quite a few years ago, a dive that did not go as well as it should have.

It was a beautiful sunny day in early August, and my dive buddy and I were planning an easy dive from a rocky shore in Porkkala in Southern Finland, not too far from where I live. It is a popular dive spot because it is usually an easy site to dive and it is easily accessible.

Salema porgy (sarpa salpa)

Salema porgy is a species of bream that is relatively common in the subtropical area of Eastern Atlantic (coasts of Northern Africa and Spain) and in the Mediterranean. It is also found in the Indian Ocean, in the coastal waters of South Africa and Mozambique. It is a shoaling fish, which means that it swims in large schools to avoid predators. Its size is 20 to 50 centimetres long.

This is a school of salema porgys that I spotted when I was doing some cave diving near Kalithea in Rhodes. A couple of saddled seabreams swimming in the same school also made the right hand corner of the picture.

Moorish Idol (Zanclus cornutus)

Here's a nice little fish I spotted while diving in the Similan Islands in Thailand some years back and managed to get a photo of . I encountered it near North Point, close to island number nine. Very dramatic scenery there, by the way, marvelous canyons and huge magnificent boulders of underwater rock!

The Moorish Idol (Zanclus cornutus)

Pike, the Great Freshwater Predator

Pike (Esox Lucius)

The pike is a relatively large carnivorous fish found in fresh waters all over the World in the northern hemisphere. It lives in fresh water, but can also be found in brackish water of the Baltic Sea.

Photo:Wikipedia

Pike are olive green or brownish in colour, with a white belly. The flank is marked with yellow spots contrasted by dark spots on the fins. The pike can grow to well over twenty kilograms in weight and 150 centimetres in length. They can live for more then twenty years. The largest and oldest pikes are always female.

Bladder Wrack (fucus vesiculosus)

Finally, after a long wait, I have the time to write again! I'll start this autumn by writing about the bladder wrack. So why write about a simple sea weed? The bladder wrack is an important part of its eco-system, it has commercial implications, and it has medicinal qualities. So it is not simply a plant growing on the bottom of the sea.

Bladder Wrack, reaching for sun light