Koh Tao
Trip Start
Feb 01, 2006
1
11
37
Trip End
May 04, 2006
Koh Tao,
Thailand
Sunday, February 19, 2006
I ended up sleeping in too late to catch the ferry to Koh Tao after the full moon party so I just hung out for the next day, and hey, if my biggest inconvenience is having to hang out on a tropical beach for an extra day, then I really can't complain right? But I was definitely happy to move on the next morning. I was heading to (and currently am on) Koh Tao, now Koh Tao is an island where a majority of the economy is based on teaching Scuba Diving lessons, which is great if you want to scuba dive, but kind of a pain in the ass when you are waiting to get on to the ferry and you can't turn your head with out a thai representative from one of the Dive companies coming up to you and giving you his ten minute sales pitch about why you should go to his place
1. Boat to Koh Tao
. It would be a lot handier if they said stuff like "my company really isn't that great but we have some nice bungalows "or the classes at my dive shop are really crowded but the teachers are great", but no they don't tell yuo anything except "my place is the best, it is exactly wht you are looking for" not especially helpful in deciding on a shop. All of the prices are exactly the same (hm price-fixing...), so you can't even really find a bargain, I just ended up going with the guy who stuck by my side as soon as we docked, and the place actually has ended up being pretty good (its called Easy Divers if you're planning a trip here). The bungalow seemed to be a big step up from the last place I stayed, sort of somewhere between a bungalow and a hotel room, but the bed is hard as a rock and I havent slept that well here, oh well you can't have it all.Anyway, the dive classes have been really fun so far, it is kind of fun to be back in a class room again. The classroom part takes up the morning and then after lunch we go out in to the water. Yesterday we did a lot of drills and practiced emergency procedures under water and just generally got used to the equipment. It was actualy really not a fun thing for the first ten minutes that I was breathing under water, the suit was pretty tight and felt restrictive, and you are forced to breathe solely through your mouth and in a way that is really awkward at first
10. Gearing up
. After the first ten minutes or so it got a little bit better, and by then end of the afternoon, I was comfortable swimming underwater with all the gear. Today we did a few more drills and did some longer dives, we swam over (and around) a lot of coral and saw a bunch of different weird looking fishes, including a few that had teeth, which always seems disturbing to me. Don't you think only mammals should be allowed to have teeth? I do. The coral was pretty fascinating stuff, it sounds pretty cliche, but it really is a whole different world down there, swimming up close to the coral was like looking at a little city, there were all sorts of different types of coral jutting out at different angles, all sorts of barnacles and clams and other weird stuff stuck to them, and then a variety of fish darting round, and from underneath rocks. Tomorrow we are going to go even deeper, down to 18 meters (around sixty feet) the colors are supposed to be even wilder further down, so I'm looking forward to that. i am thinking of sticking around, and maybe doing another dive after tomorrow, but am not sure yet. I was going to downlaod some pics, but I've been writing for a while now and am getting tired. We have to be at the dive shop at 7:30 tomorrow morning . Dang! But if you haven't looked yet I added a bunch of pics from Phangan the other day, so check em'out...
