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Dive site highlite - The Temple of Doom


Brink15

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One of my very favorite dives on Koh Phi Phi is one that we normally reserved for staff members. The Temple of Doom is aptly named as there is a sense of forboding just before you submerge.

On the West side of Phi Phi Don, around the corner from Ton Sai Bay, is a site you won't find without a guide. You would take a long tail boat and look for the marking on the cliff that would tell you when you have arrived. The trip out takes about 20 minutes or so, and gives you plenty of time to let your imagination run wild.

Once the right landmark has been found, its time for the briefing. The maximum depth of the dive is 18m, no big deal there. The average depth is about 10m. OK, pretty basic. Here's where it gets interesting. From the boat you swim out to the cliff wall that drops straight into the sea. As you descend, you follow the wall down to 18m, about 5m or so off the bottom. If you have planned your descent correctly in front of you should be a large cave opening.

Now the cave is pitch black, so your mind is really working out the possibilities. No high powered cave lights here, just normal dive lights, barely capable of illuminating 10m in front of you. Now you swim inside and even though the cave is roughly 5m top to bottom, you still must be aware not to stir up silt. Silt in a cave is very bad. Silt makes it very dificult to leave the cave. With an hour or more of air in your tank, being able to leave is important.

As you swim along you keep thinking to yourself "they told me its a straight tunnel, no side passageways in which to get lost." But now you're not quite sure. You keep swimming along, occasionally bumping into unseen swimmers headed the other way. Was that a fish or was that...?

At the end of the swim you finally see a wall in front of you, now its time to ascend. You have to ascend slowly though. You are looking for a small opening and it would not be good to go crashing into the ceiling.

Found it. As you swim up through the openning you find yourself surfacing inside the island itself, somewhere in the limestone bowels of Phi Phi Don. Its big, and its dark.

Your dive buddies surface with you and the leader advises everyone to take off their gear. You're getting out to explore the cave. But be careful where you set your gear lest you disturb the local residents, sea snakes. You see, this cave is where the sea snakes come to warm their cold blooded bodies and mate. Sea snakes, like all of their land based relatives in the krait family, need to breath. This is their home. And now you know why its called the Temple of Doom.

As you climb out of the water, you are very much aware of the slithering all around you. Hand placement is key as you grab hold of the muddy floor to pull yourself up.

The cave is alive with snakes, one there on the wall, two more on the floor, more on that ridge.

The cave goes up one more level and turns a corner. Negotiating up the slippery muddy slope is a challenge. Especially when you don't want grap a sleeping snake in error.

As you get near the top of the slope you notice a hole on the left. A large hole. Its disturbing that this hole seems to be made of mud, and seems to be eroding even as you peer into its darkness. You shine a light and can vaguely make out water at the bottom. You don't know how deep, but you do know it would be best not to find out.

You finish exploring the dry cave and its time to get back into the water. A word of caution is issued to check your gear before donning it as one of the residents may have hitched a ride.

Everyone is back in their equipment and you can see the hole below you leading to the underwater cave. You notice for the first time that you can see a faint light penatrating form the cave entrance in the sea. As you descend the light becomes just a little bit brighter and you wonder why you didn't notice when you came in. Then it occurs to you that your eyes have adapted to the darkness.

You swim towards the light welcoming you back to the sea you know so well. You exit the cave with a mixture of relief and wonder. Relieved to have had no problems and wonder at the incredible sight you just witnessed.

You ascend slowly to the surface thinking about the tale you have to tell at the bar tonight.

Anyway its one of my favorite dives.

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Tom,

Nope, no thick wetsuits, just thick hides.

Actually its a lot safer than it sounds. Unlike their land based cousins, the banded kraits, sea snakes can not open their mouths more than a few cm.s. In order for you to be invenumated, you would have to allow the sea snake to chew on an area like the ear lobe or the webbing between fingers.

They don't have the fangs found in land based snakes.

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