Koh Tao is located northwest of Koh Samui and was only an easy 3hr boat journey. Koh Tao literally means Turtle Island and is so named because of it's shape and the abundance of green turtles inhabiting the sea around the island. Known as one of Thailand's best dive spots (the island is ranked number two world-wide for issuing PADI certificates) we had chosen this island as the best (and cheapest) place for us to learn to dive.

We had selected Crystal Dive as it was the best combination of budget and feedback. On arrival we found that they had saved most of the money on the accommodation, which was basic to say the least. Although it was on the beach front with a stunning view the inside was clearly in need of a lick of paint and the bed linen consisted of a large towel and a pillow. The bathroom had a bucket as a flush and there was no hot water in the shower. There was also a motorway of ants running up the wall, luckily for us they didn't detour.

We were situated in Mae Haad, right next to the pier. It is a small town with two roads set up like a square. There isn't a lot to do here but it has the basics, atms, 7-eleven and various restaurant and bars. As it's an isolated island the electricity is erratic, and many an evening we dinned by candle light.

The courses we had chosen to do were 'PADI Open Water Diver' in which you learn the basic skills of diving up to 18 metres, and 'PADI Advanced Open water' which allows you to dive without an instructor and down to 30 metres. We soon realised that these courses were quite intensive and so we would be spending little time in our 'luxury' bungalow anyhow. Although the accomodation was a bit ropey, the standard of teaching was very high. Our instructor Kiwi was knowledgable and extreamley passionate, and I think made the course both fun and safe.

The first day was dedicated to acedemics, in which you learn the theory of diving and nitrogen etc. We had to watch several videos and read many chapters in our book. Thankfully we both passed the exam the next day and progressed to setting up our dive gear. The equipment all had to be connected and tested throughly before use. We had to repeat this 5 times on our own in order to pass. I learned that scuba gear is very heavy and could barely stand at first, but when we got in the water I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to move around. Our first lessons were in the pool and we were taught and tested on various skills such as bouyancy, clearing our mask underwater, removing our mask and putting it back on, swapping between regulator and snorkel, and emergency procedures like sharing air and ascending quickly (CESA).

The next day we went out in the boat to 'Twins' which consists of two groups of rocks with depths ranging from 18m to 6m. Our first dive was just to get us used to diving in buddy pairs but we saw lots of fish including six-barred angel fish and a family of Clark's Anemone fish (nemos) nestling in the sand. On the second dive we went to a shallower part and knelt on the bottom to be yet again tested on the skills we learned in the pool.

On the fourth (and last) day of the Open Water course we went to 'White Rock', a large coral field perfectly placed between two distinct granite pinnacles to the North and South. We did two dives here and a few more skills tests, but mostly we just enjoyed the view and checked out a few fish like Sting Rays, Moray Eels, Triggerfish and Butterfly fish.

We had passed the first stage and were both pretty tired, but that night we had homework to do for our Advanced and had to chose which adventure dives we wanted to do. We both had to do a deep dive (30m) and Navigation, Dara chose Multi-Level, Wreck and Night dives, and I chose Multi-Level, Bouyancy, and Photography.

The first day of Advanced we went to Tantote Bay where we dived the wreck of an old catamaran and the instructor gave me some bouyancy lessons by making me swim through caves and rock formations. This was a bit un-nerving at first but I soon got used to it. Unfortunately that day I had an attack of severe sea-sickness and was quite nauseous, often nearly being sick under water. I wasn't sure if I was really up to doing the second dive but struggled on as I didn't want to fall behind. This time we did navigation and at one point I felt so sick that I had to go up. Dara was his usual sympathetic self, and later wrote in his log book that the dive had finished early as I had messed up the navigation. However we both passed the first day and I recovered from my sea-sickness just after hitting land.

Our instructor Kiwi arranged for us to do our last two dives at Sail Rock, which has a huge rock chimney with a vertical swim-through that ascends from 18m to 8m, and is regarded as the best dive site in Koh Tao. Armed with sickness pills, Sudafed, sports drinks and plenty of water we set off on the hours journey to get there. It seems the sickness pills worked and there was no repeat of the previous day woo-hoo. Sail Rock was amazing, there were so many fish everywhere and the rock face was beautiful. We didn't manage to see any Whale sharks, but saw loads of other stuff. I had a camera and so took loads of stunning pictures. It has got increasingly hot here this last few weeks, and the temperatures were up to 44C on the boat deck.

That afternoon I dived off the beach for my last dive, and had one of my best dives, where I saw box fish, puffer fish, triggers, a sting ray, another family of nemos and they were all really close, plus there were no other divers about. Dara went on his night dive which he said was interesting but he wasn't happy with his gay torch which didn't work properly. He did see a turtle but said it wasn't a great dive. We had finished and were pretty exhausted, but managed to go out for a few beers to celebrate.

Next off to Koh Pha Ngan for a bit of well deserved R and R.