The first day of sunlight reaches the sea at smoother ankernde south of Phuket dive boat "MV Aragon." Suddenly the sky begins to radiate dome and in the night so dark sea again takes his accustomed to deep blue. For Holger Schwab, the German owner of the Sea Bees diving center, this is the time that best suited for diving: the hour in which his guests on board still asleep and the sea just by the first rays of sunshine will durchflutet.
Under the keel of the "MV Aragon" waiting Hin Muang. The divers circles almost legendary reef starts in eight meters deep. Over and over with a purple soft corals colonized with a benign evolution of distributed gardener must have found there beside nudibranches tropical and colorful reef fish is always the giants of the sea: Manta with up to seven meters in wingspan and whale sharks, the largest fish our planet.
Schwab will jump from the ship into the water and can be - like his diving partner - slowly sink deeper. In 15 to 20 meters depth they stop and start at the reef entlangzugleiten the attention repeatedly addressed in the open. "No other marine dwellers comes in elegance and size equal to the whale shark," says Schwager later. "Anyone who has witnessed how this peaceful giant with a steady beat fins gliding through the water, the animal is at all time lapse."
Whale shark encounters are rare
Up to 14 meters long and 12-ton whale sharks feed mainly on plankton and micro-organisms, which they suck in her mouth filter. For people with these encounters are completely harmless giants. Its underside is light colored, their backs shimmers gray-blue, interspersed with strips of bright and clearly visible points. Worldwide takes its inventory from year to year. Overfishing, targeted hunting, environmental influences? The reasons are manifold. And even when Hin Muang, was once a safe address for encounters with whale sharks and manta rays, they have become rare.
Holger Schwab appeared at the reef along and always swims back toward open water. A large school of mackerel crosses his path. Fast swimmers, whose silver body glitter. The instructor gives them only briefly his attention, as the turtle, on a tuft of soft corals their breakfast to take. The vision today, due to the high volume of plankton, a maximum of only 15 meters far? actually ideal conditions for the gentle big fish. On the sandy soil next to the reef is a Ammenhai, a good two-meter-long copy. The species feeds on preference of crabs, molluscs and cephalopods and is in divers because of its little shy nature extremely popular.
Schwab suddenly stops, turns with a stroke of the left leg of the reef and looks out into the open. What was there? Has the diffuse sunlight schemenhafte about the shape of a manta rays revealed? Schwab waits, he lurks formally. Austariert perfectly flat and only breathing, he hopes to the coronation of the early dive. One minute passes, a second follows, and nothing is going on? the outline is gone, it was perhaps only a mirage of imagination, an elegant Manta has herbeigewünscht. The gauge still shows only 90 bar residual pressure in the diving bottle, and Schwab is aimed at returning, tauchend flat out to the ship.
Mekong whiskey in the Affenbar
"In 1997 we have the first tours of Phuket from Hin Muang offered," Schwab told later on the sundeck of the "MV Aragon." "Proper adventure trips were still, with overnight stays in small bungalows on the island of Koh Lanta. There was no electricity, we have set ourselves with flashlights searched the way. There were on the island of the 'monkey skulls Bar', on the shelves Mekong Whiskey, a real cracker with a thick head on the day after. "
A little wistfully he already sounds of migrating from Augsburg who since 1995 lives in Thailand and there has now two diving center, two resort dive boats and six runs. "About Mantas had we still do not worry, they were just there, so obvious as the sunrise."
Then Holger Schwab provides to its guests who are watching on their first dive to prepare, on the face mischievous smile. "But Hin Muang is for me as a woman, perhaps even years, with somewhat less attractive effects, but to the old love never verglüht. What should I do?" And he laughs.
ON TO SPIEGEL ONLINE diving as James Bond: A Quantum luck (13.11.2008) before diving Bali: Aliens of the Secret Bay (27.10.2008) Divesafari risk: If the five-star ship as a soul seller turns (16.10.2008) Diving in the Red Sea: a dream from scrap and coral (02.10.2008) In addition to the whale sharks are primarily the mantas, which it no longer release. If they slowly from the deep blue peel and gently vibrate with the wings, a flying carpet equal, then even the experienced instructors back to a little boy, who by their own enthusiasm can carry away.
Often he then waiting motionless in the water, leaves the Giants on coming until it shortly before his high-rise and its bright side abdominal present. And then? the fist, the popular Boris Becker once did: That is the feeling that only a diver can really understand!
How beautiful women? fascinating and rarely predictable
Today it remains this feeling failed, he Manta and Whale Shark become unfaithful. "Never mind," says Schwab, "times you win, sometimes you lose. The open ocean is simply not a zoo, in which everything is planned. I know that they are out there somewhere. Maybe they were just out of sight . And someday, I see them again, it can still be or even until next month. As for beautiful women stop? Fascinating and rarely predictable. "
Less than an hour later immerse its guests back to the surface. The gentle wind their words, the gestures, however, are clear: They have their arms like bird wings outspread, and move them to settle? divers under the common symbol for Manta sightings. Aboard the faces glow with joy then, the digital cameras wander from hand to hand: Two mantas, each with just under 4 feet wingspan flying in formation on them to recognize.
As Holger Schwab said it is? Times you win, sometimes you lose. Today, he has lost and won the diving guests, and yet it is not a defeat for him: Would he have otherwise contagious laugh again, here at the reef of gentle giants?
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