First | Previous Picture | Next Picture | Last | Thumbnails

Club Stalwarts

    Shortage of members was not long a problem, for the original four had grown to 32 before the end of te club's first full month in existence. Among our first recruits was H.R.H. Prince Sanit Rangsit, to whose active participation we look forward on his present sojourn in Europe. General Chalermchai Charuvastra, director of the Tourist Organization of Thailand, accepted an invitation to become the club's patron.

    One of the earliest and most enthusiastic of the new members was Australian importer Stuart Campbell, a veteran of aeronautical and Antarctic exploration, and author of a bestselling primer of the Thai language. Stuart is now entering his second year as our hardworking secretary, a position to which he was elected on Tony Buxton's departure on a expedition to the South Pacific. Stuart soon became one of our most active SCUBA divers, and his blue-clad figure topped with matching skullcap and clasping a sawed off speargun, has been an almost invariable feature of our outings. Mounting his Nikon camera in a plexiglass housing he began to bring back striking photographs of submarine scenery. Stuart's most recent contribution to diving pleasure has been an Australian Surf Ski, a sort of unsinkable though not uncapsizeable wooden kayak which he finds a valuable adjunct to SCUBA excursions whenever he can manage to get it back from gleeful members' children to whom it is a glorious toy.

    Vichai Euarchukiate, an executive of the Thai Oil Refining Company, joined soon after the club's foundation. A long time spearfisherman and lung diver, Vichai made some of the earliest underwater photographs taken in Thailand waters. Club members have enjoyed excursions in his fine