November 2003 saw the latest club expedition finally taking place. Organisation for this had started back in early February. This was the first step towards what would turn out to be one of the best club trips that has taken place for the past few years. It all started back in late 2002 when we were asked where we would be going to go for our exotic holiday the coming year. We had visited Thailand a few time before and thought we would like to go back and see if we could visit those sites we were unable to see when last there. So we started to make our own plans. A few close friends discovered our plans and asked if they could come as well, later a few other asked the same question, so we decided to see if any other would like to come as our numbers had increase from two to five. This grew very quickly to fifteen within a few days once we had posted the “Dive On” sheet. Out of these only two were non-divers and a third was still doing her Ocean Diver Training.

What we had to do was sort the accommodation and diving out for the whole group. Thankfully we had contacts that we had used before and using the World Wide Web the seeds to this great trip were soon planted. Over the coming months the details were worked out to everyone’s satisfaction. Our plans were to stay at the ‘In On The Beach’ Hotel in the resort of Karon Beach on Phuket Island and to use Dive Asia as our diving operator. We booked our flights with Malaysian Airlines and we only had to wait until November and our time for departure.

If you would like to read more about this trip, a full report is to follow containing lots of information about the resort, the hotel and all about the diving. There will also be some general information that may be of interest as well. I hope others who accompanied us will also write a few lines.

Harry Ryalls