Self contained underwater.......
Trip Start
Aug 07, 2008
1
47
79
Trip End
Ongoing
Ko Tao,
Thailand
Sunday, November 30, 2008
1. cheap
2. PADI course
3. free rooms for the duration of our course
4. free transportation to Koh Tao from Bangkok (overnight bus/ferry)
5. and finally, good reviews online from other travelers...
we ended up choosing Buddha View Dive Resort. for 9500 baht, we got free 4 nights accommodations (not great, but not bad rooms), the four day Open Water PADI SCUBA course that includes 4 dives, the Open Water course book, overnight bus to Chumpon and the ferry ride to Koh Tao and free pickup from the pier... 9500 baht = approximately $265. we got a great deal considering two of the people in our course paid 11000 baht and the two paid 12500 baht. our work paid off.
the next obstacle was the weather. the forecast was for thunderstorms with about 100% chance of rain in Koh Tao for the next 10 days. with prayer and a pocketful of faith, we trucked down there anyway... we could not complain about the weather. sunny, with good conditions considering that it is now monsoon season. the only drawback were the ferry rides to and from the mainland to Koh Tao. 2.5 hours of sheet misery!!! have you seen the TV show, "the deadliest catch"... that's the one with crab fishermen in alaska... the boats go up and down and every which way with horrendous waves... the ride to Koh Tao was not THAT bad, but it didn't feel much better... 90% of the people on the boat were throwing up... i don't get sea sick that often, but i was heaving foam for some of that trip. eunice didn't fare any better either... thank GOD, we got to the island in one piece. but once on the island, we were pretty much 90% the whole time (well, until eunice got sick on the last day... a cold)... well, that's the bad part of the trip, our time on the island was wonderful.
our course had 6 students including us, a main instructor, an assistant instructor and another assistant instructor for the dives. very well organized. Adam and Tom were our main guys and they were awesome. very knowledgeable, very eco friendly and just a joy to be around. the first day consisted of morning classroom time with two quizes, then the afternoon in the pool for surface and underwater skills training... stuff like clearing our masks underwater, equalizing, buoyancy and learning about all the different equipment that we were using. day two was again, a morning session followed by a shallow water dive in the ocean to transfer our pool skills into the actual ocean... good time, but i got queasy from the currents. day three had the final exam in the morning and our first two real dives in the ocean. we dove down to 12 meters or 40 feet for about 50 minutes at two different sites called Japanese Gardens. we saw a variety of fish and had fair visibility. eunice and i both loved it! it was like being in a saltwater aquarium... weird but awesome feeling. the next day, we dove White Rock and Twins to 18 meters for about 50 minutes each time. again, much of the same things... fish, coral, etc... wonderful time... then we got our certificates and we are now certified open water SCUBA divers!
it was fascinating.... although the conditions were not ideal it was incredible to accomplish something that gives us the certification to venture into new frontiers (underwater) i'd highly recommend it to everyone! it really is a LOT of fun. we half thought about doing the advance course for two more days and another $200 per person, but with the combination of us not feeling 100% and time restrictions, we passed on that opportunity... i'm sad since that would allow us to go to 30 meters deep to 100ft, give us experience with underwater compass navigation, night diving, underwater photography and a variety of other things to choose from... hopefully we get that chance somewhere in our travels....
tis all for now... we're headed back to bangkok for our last two nights in Asia before moving on to New Zealand!!!
