Julie and Andy find Nemo!

The plan was to arrive on Ko Tao about 10am and start our dive course about 1pm. Well, in Thailand, things do not always go according to plan, especially when public transport is involved! The train arrived at 6.30am instead of 4.30am and our ferry was due to leave at 7am. This still gave us plenty of time, except we were met at the platform by people telling us our ferry had been cancelled and we would need to get a different one, which (of course)cost more. We basically didn't believe them, so hung about for a while trying to contact the dive company on the phone to see if they would confirm the story. Unfortunately, by the time the story was confirmed as being true, we had missed the ferry and had to wait about till 1.30pm to get the next one! The ferry people also said they would only give us half our money back on the original ferry that was cancelled! We argued the bit out though and eventually only paid the extra amont for the dearer ferry.

01 Diving in Ko Tao

Suffice to say we were absolutely knackered by the time we reached Ko Tao, and hoped we would be able to start the course earlier the next day, to catch up with the ones who had arrived on time. Except the guy running the course wanted us to go ahead that night with the first part of the course, which was only watching dive videos and taking notes. We agreed and started about 6.30pm till about 8.30pm, still having not eaten anything since lunch!

02 Diving in Ko Tao

Day 2

The next morning we joined the rest of the group on the course, doing some theory in the morning then donning our gear in the afternoon, to do our first session in the pool. Breathing under water for the first time!! We went over lots of drills under the water, like clearing the mask of water and replacing the mouth piece as if it had fallen or been pulled out.

Day 3

The next morning we went for our first real dive in the sea! At the 'twin peaks' dive site. We spent about 45 mins at 12m mostly going over the drills again and saying hello to the odd fish or two. It is suprising how tiring you get just from breathing under water, we were both exhasted at the end of the day, so like two old biddies went off to bed nice and early.

03 Diving in Ko Tao

Day 4

Today we became certified divers! This final day was the end to a really enjoyable few days diving. We completed two dives today down to a depth of 18m, the first dive was hightlighted by seeing the resident turtle feeding off the coral - excellent! Later that night we watched a video of the day on the huge widescreen TV in the bar and purchased a copy for memory.

Day 5

This morning we thought we would see a little bit more of 'Turtle Island' before saying goodbye. We walked to the next resort along, which has a lovely bay with a quiet beach and fishing boats. It is a really beautiful place.

After some effort we managed to book a boat off Ko Tao. The intention was to go direct to the Thai mainland but the only boat leaving the island was going to Ko Samui. Typical to Thai time, the boat was late which meant us having to spend the night on Ko Samui. We found a nice guesthouse, had a nice meal and caught an early boat to Surat Thani on the mainland.

04 Turtle

05 Turtle

06 turtle