A few of our Sea Bees instructors went down to Cape Panwa to watch the blessing of the ten aircraft before they were moved by crane onto waiting barges in the Deep Sea Port Phuket. From there they will ferry them to the project site, located about one kilometre offshore of Bang Tao Beach, in the north west of Phuket, to create a new artificial reef project.

Cherng Talay, where the artificial reef project will be sunk, has a large Muslim community, therefore the Muslim blessing service was conducted on Saturday morning.

The Muslim blessing was followed by a Buddhist blessing ceremony, conducted by five monks.

The aircraft were originally meant to be sunk early in May, but the onset of stormy monsoon-season weather caused project organizers to postpone the sinking until this month for safety reasons.

According to the project schedule, the loading work has taken place through November 22, with the barges departed for the project site on November 23.

The sinking of three planes and six helicopters is expected to take four days, with the final ‘Dakota’ is scheduled on Saturday, November 29.

Divers will soon be able to explore the ‘Coral Reef Squadron’ and of course, Sea Bees will check it out also and report about the new dive site soon.