Thailand, Koh Tao - part 4

When the wind from NE or E was stronger, there were many fishing boats anchored in our bay, since it was so well protected. But on this morning it was very calm, and still these two were dancing around one another for almost an hour to get anchored and tied side by side. Maybe the crews just wanted to have breakfast together.

Only on two days wind was blowing from SE and rolled some waves into our bay, normally sea was calm and visibility in the water good even when the E or NE wind was strong. From what we've seen, the bays on E, N and even on W side got quite choppy and water less clear. I guess we were really lucky with our hotel and it's location, especially since I chose it from the photos on the Internet without any deep knowledge about the location, winds and surroundings.

Here are some more snorkelling photos. We found this pretty Cowry shell in our bay.

I know you've seen one or two of these Groupers in my previous posts, but I just couldn't stop photographing them. I named them Pyjama groupers.

These are Buterflyfish, very similar to Racoon buterflyfish from Maldives.

I was amazed of how many Mushroom corals there were in some places.

I'm not sure what this is, could be a zoanthid, but even more mysterious are the round things on the left lower edge of it - a couple of anemones maybe. I only discovered them while studying the photos on my computer at home.

This one has many names, my favourite is Zig-Zag oyster.

These must be Cup corals, I've never seen green ones yet.

And this one looks like Acropora coral.

This one is quite similar to Blacktip grouper, that we often saw in Maldives.

Again I don't know what this shiny turquoise stuff is, it looks like it is encrusting a branch of Acropora coral.

Different Parrotfish

And a Pyjama grouper once more - this time because of it's pretty blue fins draped around him.

With this one I'm totally clueless - I've never seen anything like it, so I'm not even sure if it's a plant or an animal. I saw several more, but they were difficult to spot despite their colour, since they were 1 - 2 cm small.

Here is the sea urchin section - first is a Slate pencil sea urchin ...

... these are Diademas or Long spine sea urchins ...

... and here is a Diadema detail.

This photo is not just pretty because of the colourful anemone in which the Clownfish are sitting, but I also think that the orange spots above the anemone where the smaller Clownfish is, are their eggs.

This is a Fan worm, I've seen plenty of similar ones in Caribbean and in Adria.

Couldn't resist posting another photo of Christmas Tree worms.

A blue sponge

And one more Parrotfish.

We had a really great time in Koh Tao, lots of adventures, snorkelling, nice people and great food. If it weren't for the long journey, I'd go back tomorrow.

Here is one more sunset, photo was taken from our balcony at Pinnacle hotel.