Diving on a Live-aboard

Diving on a Live-aboard (LOB) is when you go diving on a boat.

You do everything on the boat. Eat, sleep and dive.. all of that on the boat. A trip like that can be as short as 3 days up to 2-3 weeks.

The advantage of diving on an LOB is that you can access some of the most remote dive sites without having to touch the land. So a boat can travel long distance and bring you to these locations equipped with all the necessary facilities.

The most popular LOBs in ASEAN are mostly operating in Indonesia because Indonesia has some of the best dive sites in the world and people are willing to pay top dollars to go there. These trip can cost from US$300 to US$700 per night. Yes per night! That means a 10 day trip will set you back at least US$3-4k just for the boat and doesn't include airfare, accommodation in transit, marine park fees, etc.

I just came back from a trip to Similan Islands (Thailand) and we went all the way almost near the Burmese border.

The trip was so-so. Thailand has damaged most of its coral reefs with no idea or political will to conserve their marine resources. I will never go back there again.

 Luckily I managed to get an encounter with 4 giant Barracudas during one of the dives there. So the trip is not all lost.

The thing about this type of diving trips is that you are "trapped" on the boat day and night with 16-18 other people.

You maybe with going with your own group of friends. But if your group is not large enough to charter the whole boat, you will end up mixing with strangers.

In this type of dive trips, you find the most diverse people. I am not going to describe the diving part because that's not the subject this time.

The people of the boat this trip....

(1) Rich Chinese guy with Thai mistress. Even before we got to the boat, the couple was already proving themselves to be an ugly cliche.

Here's part of the conversation between him and her on the van going towards the boat.

Guy: "Did you know that I have a pair of solid gold glasses? Ya, it cost RM12,000!!!"

Mistress: Speechless. Probably thinking the guys is such a stupid ass.

Guy: "I also bought 2 apartments in Bangkok, about 5 million Thai Baht each. I'll give one to you.

Mistress: "Ooooo", started hugging him and rubbing his thigh. She was almost on the verge of giving him a blow job in the van if there weren't 10 other strangers around.

Then...
Mistress: "Such an expensive apartment; I can't afford to pay for the maintenance fee..."
[You greedy bitch, he just gave you an apartment and you are asking him for more money???]

At this point I wanna reach across and slap the guy for such an asshole and kick the mistress in the teeth for such a slime.

(2) Fat and ugly guy. Probably a pilot. Because he insisted on people called him Captain. Hey asshole, you are on a dive trip. Who gives a fuck what you do for a living?

FUG prove to be a total narcissist. Non stop talking about the most simple trivia trying to impress people of his encyclopedic knowledge about the most idiotic things.

For example, he declared proudly: "Did you know that Chinese eat everything with a backbone facing the sun?" It was as if people had never heard of that tired claim about Chinese. Hey asshole, can you please don't disgrace the 2 billion Chinese people in this world? You don't speak for all of us.

The Japanese guy sitting at the same table was probably thinking to himself that the fucking Japs were justified in killing all those Chinese in WWII because Chinese are stupid.

FUG is a friends of the rich Chinese guy and they both compete in bragging about anything they can think of.

(3) Rude Indian Chibai (RIC). I was having a nice breakfast conversation with the Dive Instructor (Thai) because she went to University in US just like I did.

All of the sudden, the Chibai butt in to share his opinion about Donald Trump. Hey asshole, you can't see that we are having a private conversation? Do I even fucking know you?

Just because we are on the same boat doesn't mean that we are all of a sudden, good friends, ok? Now fuck off to another table.

Not surprisingly RIC end up every evening at the same dining table with the Fat fuck and the Chinese asshole.

So now you have 3, yes THREE, assholes at the same table trying to "share" experiences but the real purpose is to brag about how rich or smart they were.

(4) Young Chinese Asshole. YCA thinks he is as handsome and cool as Andy Lau. He sings along with every single love songs (Thai and Mandarin). Watching him trying to hit the high note makes me want to kick him in the face.

And he bragged about how he scored drugs and almost overdosed. Well, one less asshole in this world is not a bad thing. So please go ahead and kill yourself.

(5) Chinese alcoholic - drinks from morning to night. The group leader FORCED everyone to chip in the buy 7 cases of beer. This fellow probably drank most of it.

(6) Chinese gangster wannabe
The assshole connected his mobile phone to the boat's stereo system through wifi and start playing his music all day long.

Hey asshole, not everyone likes to listen to your trance/ganagsta/techno music at 7 fucking am!!

You like your playlist so much, put on a pair of fucking earphones!!

(7) Thai lady, obviously from rich family, was sent to US boarding school from the age of 13. Lived in US for many years, came back to Bangkok. Probably forced by father to join the family business. Ran away to become dive instructor/guide.

(8) Malay dive instructor but I think he is mamak because he looked just like an Indian. Drinks alcohol and eats pork. Evidently he is not a Muslim when he is out of the country. I bet he goes back to Malaysia and pretend he is a good Muslim on Friday. What a fucking douche bag.

(9) Japanese dive instructor/guide. Speaks fluent Thai. Kinda makes you wonder what made her end up in Thailand. She will never be accepted back in Japan because she would be too "different" and she probably won't want to either.

The rest of the people were either my friends or people that I know so I'm not going to talk about them in my blog.