Koh Tao

  Koh Tao, Thailand
Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Now this was a great spot. I saw practically nothing of the island itself as I spent every day in the resort which ran the dive course. My main reason for coming here was to learn how to dive and get my PADI certificate.

02. Sunset

I had heard bout this spot a long time ago and is known as the cheapest place to get your diving credentials.

Mini and myself enrolled in and were sent straight to class. the first thing to get was the basic Open Water certificate. Its a 2 and a half day course with the first half of the day spent in a swimming pool getting the basics and the other 2 days comprising of dives in the sea.

Along with the course we were givin a manual to read and had some tests to do along the way. It turned out to be easier than I expected. The toughest part of the course was at the start when we had to swim for 200 meters and then thread water for 10 minutes. Seein as though I can't swim worth shite that was a real challenge, but I got through it.

The course was run by a guy called Assar

12. Assar, Mini and Me

(spelling may be wrong) and also had a Swedish lady called Verica and a French guy called Max looking after us. The last 2 mentioned were brill and we ended up having a great laugh with them.

The first of our dives we got to see some of the wonderful coral that lives in the area. It was a strange feeling jumping into the water with a big tank of air on our backs, but it was made easier by the fact that I had done a basic dive when I was in Vietnam. The water in this area is spectacular. We has visibility of 30+ meters which is brilliant apparently and temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius, even at 30 meters down.

The third day we did two more dives and also had our final exam which luckily everyone passed. That night we all had a few drink,

16. The gang from the open water course

one to celebrate the fact that we passed but for me mainly because it was the last time Mini and meself would be traveling together as he was heading to India. Its fair to say we celebrated in style with Max and Verica along with us for the occasion.

Mini headed off the next day and I decided to hang on to do the advanced course. A few of the guys that were on the Open Water course also did the Advanced. That consisted of an Irish couple Tom and Maria (well she didn't do the advanced so Tom became my "Buddy Diver") and a Dutch couple Taco and Karin. This part of the course didn't have any tests to complete instead we had 5 dives over two days. The most impressive of which was a night dive and a 30 meter dive where we swam beside sharks and ended up having one guy come within 5-10meters of us. We even managed a pic but the visibility wasn't great so the pic is a bit hazy, but you can still see him. The night dive was just so peaceful. I had all these horror imagine of not seeing a thing and getting lost and feeling claustrophobic etc. We were givin lamps to have a look around. But at one part of the dive Poli our instructor got us to turn off our lights.

18. Looking up at the sun

It was amazing, we could still see shadows and outlines as the light from the moon was making its way down. We also got to see some of the wildlife that you don't see during the day like barracudas and sting rays.

All in all I had a great time here and had some great fun with the guys we met. Unfortunately I had to go for two reasons one the silly women that looked after the rooms wouldn't give me the room for the same rate I was paying previously (you get a cheaper rate if your doing a dive course there) and secondly the weather has started to get a bit shite.

42. The whole gang

It being rainy season and all so instead I decided to head to Koh Phi Phi.