Blue Guru's 7th season has kicked off with a great week of National Park trips. For the 3rd year running we are integrating our Ocean Action Project research with every dive & snorkel session we conduct in the National Parks and the scope is now expanded to include all local & offshore dives from Koh Phra Thong. In 2014 our research is supported by Project AWARE as 1 of only 5 official Ocean Action Projects worldwide. 

The whole team has been involved in recording data this week. On Tuesday our ecotourism interns enjoyed their 1st Surin snorkeling day trip. Highlights included juvenile shaded batfish & cuttlefish. As always, the crystal clear blue water around Surin Islands was stunning. It doesn't matter how many years you return to Surin National Park, you never tire of the beautiful scenery.

On Thursday & Friday every member of the dive team joined our 1st Richelieu Rock/Surin Islands 2 day dive safari. Highlights included octopus, mating cuttlefish & mantis shrimp. Again, it doesn't matter how many times you dive at Richelieu Rock, it is always an extremely rewarding dive with an endless array of marine life & colourful soft corals.

Sadly during our 1st week we spotted no sharks, rays or turtles but we hope sightings will improve during the season. We did spot several fishing boats with up to 6 seen from Richelieu Rock. Thankfully there was very little fishing net debris on the reefs, which has been a problem at the start of previous seasons. The little fishing net debris that was seen caught on new staghorn growth at Surin Islands has been reported to National Park management for careful removal.

All the data gathered from our 1st week of diving & snorkeling has been entered into our Ocean Action Project database and submitted to Shark Guardian's Thailand e-Shark project. We look forward to recording & sharing much more information about sightings of sharks, rays & turtles over the coming 5 months.