Whispers of the Forest, Echoes of the Sea

The moment my feet touched the hot sands of Koh Phangan, I felt an immediate connection. I had left my quaint city life in Edinburgh, Scotland, for the next few months, searching for a feeling I couldn't put my finger on, but knew existed. I had felt it before, in Indonesia, and even on the rugged and windswept coasts of my home country, but after many years spent enduring the rainy, often downright cold summers of Scotland, I was craving heat. My soul needed sunshine, beaches, and endless ocean time. I needed the tropics. 

A turbulent patch in my personal life, combined with the dreadful feeling of impending adulthood that comes with graduating university, had basically compelled me to run away to Thailand for a while to reconnect with my real passion: the sea. I was staying at a scuba research station on the northern coast of the island, aiming to collect data on reef fish which I would write up as a paper, hopefully for publication. It may sound like work to some, but with my inability to just chill out, and my frantic love of all things coral reef and fish-related, it sounded perfect. I had no idea what to expect, but I was ready for anything.




















Koh Phangan is a uniquely special place. Set in the warm tropical sea of the Gulf of Thailand, between the islands of Koh Tao and Koh Samui, it is truly a paradise. Jungle-green hills shrouded by clouds slope down to kiss the sun-baked beaches, where turquoise waters lap at pale shores, and shoals of fish leap and dance across the surface. The village of Chaloklum is nestled in a bay in the north, a bleached white curve of sand, full of mango trees and butterflies. There was a noticeable lack of tourists, and the sound of the forest and the sea filled the air, pierced by the calls of myna birds every so often. The research station was perfectly rustic, a traditional wooden Thai building on the main street, with an open kitchen and bunks upstairs. Geckos scampered across the walls and frangipani flowers littered the garden, and you could hear mice squeaking in the kitchen at night. It was quirky and charming and quickly became home. 


Diving on the reefs of the island was entirely different to any diving I had done before. Due to the enclosed and shallow nature of the Gulf of Thailand, and the large freshwater input from multiple rivers, the region is ecologically unusual; exceptionally warm waters, low salinity and poor circulation has led to the development of turbid reefs across the area, including Koh Phangan. These reefs are characterised by high levels of sedimentation, low fish and coral diversity, and very limited visibility, making them somewhat less appealing to recreational divers, though explicitly interesting to scientific divers like myself. The biodiversity may be a little different to your standard tropical reef - but that's what makes it memorable. And I will remember these reefs forever. 

Just metres below the surface, in every cove and bay, an underwater kingdom of life and colour lives and breathes. Fringes and braids of algae and seaweed sway with the tide, harbouring schools of glassy cardinalfish and juvenile scad. The reef flats are like underwater flower meadows, rolling across the shallows, dappled sunlight dancing across the branches of brown and orange corals. Tiny black damselfish cower in the tangled safety of acropora, whilst glistening shoals of rabbitfish glide over the substrate, scraping bites of algae as they go. Indian goatfish skim the seabed, barbells searching the silty sediment for unassuming crustaceans. The parrotfish are iridescent capsules of rainbow, crisscrossing the reef in a frenzy of colour and leaving only chalky white traces in their wake. 

















Towards deeper waters, the reef crest looms, a mountainous land of bouldering coral canyons and ethereal light. Honeycomb groupers lurk in the shadows, and larger fish such as snappers and bream drift in and out of view. Great plates of pachyseris and pavona spread like open palms across the substrate, hiding the red and silver forms of squirrelfish, that stare, motionless, with huge black eyes. Colourful wrasse twist and twirl around purple barrel sponges, the opalescent shells of giant clams snapping shut at the slightest current of water. Copperband butterflyfish feed in pairs, their flat yellow forms bobbing as they suck coral polyps from the reef. The sediment is studded with clams and shellfish, overgrown with algae and embellished with spotted cowrie shells and purple cushion stars. Everything is moving and shimmering and bubbling, and though far from pristine, the reef is anything but dull. 

Diving these reefs everyday never got old; I became increasingly connected to each and every part of them with each dive I did. As my diving hours increased, so did my enthusiasm. Day to day life at the research station became easy and natural; I would walk on the beach in the morning, breathing the air and watching the surf in the bay, a meditative wake up, before breakfast and the dive briefing at the big wooden table. We would dive through the morning, laying transects on the reef, assessing coral bleaching, substrate composition, predators, giant clams and fish abundance. We worked in pairs along the transect, helping complete each other's datasets and sharing underwater jokes on the dive slates when we had spare moments. I also had my own data to collect, specifically on the abundance of and diversity of herbivorous and corallivorous fish species found across the reef flat and crest zones. 



Some days, the visibility was so poor you couldn't see your own hand in front of you, nevermind your dive slate or buddy, which proved challenging, especially with the pressure of collecting somebody else's data and not wanting to mess it up (or die). Other days, the surge was so bad you could barely stop to think before you were smashed against rocks and corals, and sometimes the forces combined and it was like diving in a washing machine of thai green curry. We would wear neon bandanas and socks, each with our own colour, just to keep track of each other when the plankton was particularly thick, but there was no stopping the swell of the sea - and I've got the scars to show for it. 

Surfacing after a dive was always a magical feeling, like I'd just witnessed a whole other world that I wasn't supposed to know existed. We would laugh and joke and gush about the species we’d seen on the dive, as the boat steamed through the waves, skirting the island back towards our bay. We were such nerds, it was wonderful, and the team spirit was always flying high. There is nothing better than having an in-depth, enthusiastic conversation about something you love, that stretches your brain in new directions, with people who are equally as obsessed with it. I love the sea for its beauty and wonder, but it's the mystery of the science that keeps me hooked. 











There is so much we don’t know about Koh Phangan’s reefs. The lack of data makes it hard to understand the ecosystem, its sensitivity to change, and how resilient it is to the growing pressures of pollution, overfishing and climate change. The uniqueness of these turbid systems, from their lack of surgeonfish to their intense plankton levels, makes them incomparable to other reefs - every piece of data gathered here is a step in the right direction towards protecting them. 

My time spent living and diving on this island has given me so much more than just a dataset on fish. I have made favourite memories, life-long friends, and improved exponentially as a diver and scientist. I learned things you cannot pick up from a book or a lecture, about the cohesive nature of the reef, about how to read the clouds and the waves, about how to respect local culture and put myself out there and believe in myself and my goals. I loved the feeling of being barefoot all the time, the salt on my skin and sea in my hair, not a care in the world other than how much air was left in my tank or how many golden rabbitfish I'd seen that day. I was living this life, so rustic and raw and real, no air conditioning or television or connection to the rest of the world needed. 

I had the fewest belongings, but felt the richest I had ever been. My life here was full. The days were similar and easy, though each brought new moments of magic and adventure; the thrill of sighting a rare fish, the unpredictable monsoon weather, encounters with locals and stray dogs and our expanding collection of inside jokes that still make me giggle even now. Sometimes a storm would rip across the island, cutting the power and flooding the courtyard which we’d have to bail out by hand with buckets, up to our thighs in brown water. There were next to no tourists here, the beaches usually empty and serene bar the occasional hippie meditating under a tree. Tearing up the road on a scooter, the wind ripping through our hair, watching the gleam of the sea through the palm trees was a whole new level of freedom. And swimming in the bay, silver moonlight pooling around us as an elixir of bioluminescence glowed green in the water, is a level of magic that will probably go unmatched for the rest of my life. What it really taught me, is that it isn’t about what you have or how it looks, but about doing the things that truly make you happy, having a reason, and being with the right people. This was a snippet of the real Thailand. 



Now, I am on the neighbouring island of Koh Samui, writing up my research paper and feeling very sentimental about the whole experience. I hope my research can contribute to the now growing body of work being carried out by the research station there, and enable greater management and conservation of the area we have grown to love so much. The reefs may not be the kaleidoscope of colourful corals glimmering in crystal clear waters, as the common tourist may expect, but there is a certain magnetism and charm in the mysterious, often murky depths, and beauty in the knowledge that few people make the effort to get to know these reefs. I've found what I want to do for the rest of my life, and that is a really special feeling. And I don’t think this will be the last time I set foot on Koh Phangan. 

the sound of the forest and the sea filled the air, pierced by the calls of myna birds

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

Surfacing after a dive was always a magical feeling, like I'd just witnessed a whole other world that I wasn't supposed to know existed

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

Meet Sophie

scientist, diver and environmentalist making waves to protect our oceans :)