We were both so excited for our few days of detox and diving in Koh Tao. We had booked a 4 day and 4 night open water diving course at Bans Diving resort, I think its the biggest on the island and one of the biggest dive centres in the world to learn to dive. The hotel is amazing, 2 pools beach front restaurant with loads of boats for the diving in the day. Deffinatly our most luxurious hotel so far even thought we only have a fan room.

At 5.15 we met our group for the next 4 days and headed off to class with a pile of books, pens and quiz sheets. I had joked about it being a classromm with white walls, rows of desks and a white borad, and that is exactly what it was we were all laughing and it felt like we were back at school. We met Steve or 'Scube Steve' our instructor and he chatted to us for a bit before dissapearing and leaving us to watch a 2 hour dvd about diving. It was the night after the half moon so as you can imagine, non of us saw the end. In our group was Marianne and Danny (we all came together form Coral) Lauren and Jessie a Canadian couple, John and Ricky to guys from london.

From here we eushed to the internet cafe as it was results day and WOOHOOOO 2:1, it was so unexpected I burst in to histerical tears in the internet shop, I have never been so happy or shocked even. It was sad though as I couldnt celebrate with anyone and we had to be up early for diving I was gutted.

The next day was more theory follwed by 5 hours of skills in the pool, I was really sared about this as I hate going underwater without plugginh my nose, but I did really good. Day 3 was dive 1 and 2 but I didnt quite make it that far, being so petrified of the sea I really didnt want to do it when I got up in the morning. We had our briefing and off we went on the boat. James was a natural in the water, but me, well...... I gt less than a metre down and started panicking so splashed my way up to the surface, before calming myself down and finally making it to 10 mtrs down. As son as we got down he signaled to start doing our skills, i.e filling our mask with water etc. James said I was shaking as I was that scared. By the time it came to me i ws panicking and crying so was so glad when steve tok me back up to the boat. I felt totally relieved. I felt much better and funnily enough our boat master was from Halifax and had also worked in Kos so for the rest of the morning I took full advantage of the free coffee and biscuits.

James had seen a turtle and all sorts of fish so was like a happy little kid when he had finished. Later that night we all went out for tea and I celebrated my uni results we splashed out and had mexican, enchiladas and chimichangas and oooooo a beer, non of this 70 bht Thai food for a night, it was soooo good.

While James went off on dives 3 and 4 I had a well deserved lie in.

Sunday was Canada day and as we were with 4 canadians we went to lotus bar on the beach for free drinks and the fire show. Again it was an early night as James was doing his advanced course the following day. By this point I had got really frustrated that I didnt get to dive and really didnt want to give up, everyone was encouraging me to do it but i must have change my mind every hour. When I got up the next morning I didnt want to do it so went to reception with James while he sorted his course out, by this point I had been introduced to Jens another instructor from Denmark, he was now to be my new 1-1 instrutor, he seemed crazy and his first words to me after I told him how scared I was, was 'f##k it lets go have some fun'. This was the attitude I needed and totally snapped me out of my worry and anxiety. He was HILARIOUS!! he sang to me underwater, high fived me every 2 mins and just had me laughing the whole time and befoe I knew it we had conquered my fears in the pool and were ready to go on dives 1 and 2. He said he was really impressed with my knowledge and skills as he had presummes Id be terrible with the way I was acting. By the time it came to gear up and jump in I was so excited especially after he told me I didnt have to do any skills on this dive. I was the first one in the water!!

Dive one was at Twin Rocks, we descended to 11.7 mtrs no problem and swam over to the buoyancy world, basically a big underwater playground were you practice your buoyancy going through hoops and asult courses and there was a huge concrete octopus and shark down there to. He also had me floating vertically upside down which had me in stitches which is not really to good as your mask floods but I was so happy my fears had gone.

We were down for about 35 mins and it was just unbelievable, the coral is just insane and the fish are so colour full I couldnt blink for staring in total amazement. After we Acsended and got on the boat we both did a celebratory dance, I think Jens was more excited than me but I felt so proud. Dive 2 was at white rock, again words cant describe what it is like down below. I did all my skills as soon as we decended so again we did our little dance this time taking off our fins and doing foreward rolls on the bottom. We were only meant to go to 12 metres deep but went to 14.7 metres, oooppppsss. It such a crazy feeling floating about in the sea, even better we found a turtle so swa, along side it for a few minutes, it was sureal!! We also saw a few trigger fish and stingrays. The highlight of the dive was "finding nemo" on the seabed was a huge circle of rocks surrounding a little patch of green plant where he lived a tiny little nemo fish all on his own, it was so cute I watched it for ages.

I was so excited to get back to shore to tell James all about it, he had worried all day that I might have panicked again but he was so proud. Everyone had known how scared I had been so were all congratualting me even the girls in reception! As I had already studied I didnt have to do any more theory so went back to the room to crack on with my exam. 98% or course, I seem to be gettin cleverer in my old age.

Todat was D-Day, on dive 3 was my mask removal I was scared but so giddy to do my next dive i think I was past caring. I was the first one ready and off the boat. We went deeper today to 18 mtrs but naughtily again ended up deaper at 19.1 the crazy instructor. Today was just as amazing exploring all the coral and doing forward rolls on the bottom which has my in histerics everytime. I deffinatly got the bext deal having a 1-1 instructor as we got to spend the whole time diving rather than waiting for others to do their skills. Before I knew it thought it was time to face my fear, MASK REMOVAL. We did it at our safety stop so only 5 mtrs from the surface, Jens clamped my leg between his so i didnt float, held my regulator in my mouth and before I had time to think I HAD DONE IT!!!! SUCCESS!! Dive 4 was even better no skills just free to dive as we pleased and I have to say we are both totally addicted to diving. We got back and he handed me my log book and details and woohoo I am now an Open Water Diver!

The following day the tide was really far out do we walked the whole length of the beach to climb the rocks at the other end. Koh Tao has been our favorite place so far and we have completely fallen in love with the laid back chilled out island and are both really gutted to be leaving, however next stop Krabi!