Hin Muang Hin Daeng

Then the line snapped. Narata and the other two divers who were already in the water began signaling and yelling. I was suited up on the back of the speedboat. The dive master told me to jump in.
"Don't you think we should rescue them first?" I mentioned. He looked at me like:
"wa -huh???"
"They're drifting away." I yelled above the noisy waves. It began to register on him that there was a problem.
"amateurs." I thought to myself.

Hin Muang and Hin Daeng are tiny little rocks in the middle of the Adaman. A single step would take you from shore to shore. The full moon had just passed and there was a terrific current. The dive master began to yell to them to swim to the island. They couldn't make it. They were quickly becoming exhausted. I began to wonder if this clown was going to get his shit together before things got ugly. In the open sea things often do.

The boat captain took control and powered us in reverse towards them. We were able to get them another line. The captains idea was to tow them back to the island.
"Jump in." The dive master said to me again for the third time.
"Shouldn't we wait until we get them back?" I said wondering just how stupid was this guy.
"Oh yeah."
It wasn't pretty, them hanging onto the rope gulping seawater as we dragged them across the choppy waters.

We made our return to the island and the rest of us dove in. Five meters below the surface the current was still powerful but not overwhelming. The reef there has a thirty meter drop. There are plenty of big coral formations and considering how warm the water was is, a good amount of color. We didn't get to see any whale sharks or giant mantaas though.

The weather turned bad again on our return trip to Ko Phi Phi. The speedboat pounded the waves. It was Naratas turn to get sick. He looked quite green as he puked into the roiling wake of the twin engines.

As we hung up our gear in the dive shop I mentioned to Narata about the chaos on the boat while they were adrift. He told me it was my duty to tell the shop owner. With great reluctance I did. They were ok guys, just disorganized. Naratas point was that can be fatal at sea. It was a good one.

The owner was deaf and he had to read my lips. He responded to my story by telling me how he was going to make their night hell. It wasn't at all what I wanted. I thought a review of safety procedures, establishing a chain of command, that might be helpful. But you can't tell anybody anything.