We caught a 3 hour ferry over to Ko tao. It is a small island that sits on a ledge of coral reefs with crystal clear water which makes it a famous place to dive and snorkel. The diving courses here are also amazingly cheap. We got picked up from the ferry by a man, we sat on the back of his ute and went to buddha view diving. With our diving course we were given 4 nights accommodation free. Of course it wasnt very nice and we had to pay if we wanted it cleaned. But it was free and we mademore of an effort to go and socialise.
The open water course runs for 4 days but because the group was just the two of us we flew through it and completed it in 3! The first day we had to do paperwork and practice in the swimming pool. Second day we did some more paperwork but we got to go out to sea in the afternoon for our first 2 dives. We went to two different dive sites Japanese garden and white rock. The water here has a high visibility so plenty of marine life is easily seen. Our 3rd day we went straight out in the morning for our last 2 dives before our final exam. We were on our way to a dive spot when the skipper got a call from another boat advising us that they had seen a whale shark. with huge excitement we changed directions and headed their straight
away. We were fortunately one of the groups lucky enough to see him. Apparently they are rare and most divers were saying they finally saw one on the 200th dive. We were very happy to see one to welcome us into the world of diving! The atmosphere on Ko tao was great and we would definately reccomend Ko tao for diving, snorkelling or even partying.