Hello all, we've finally made it to the island of Koh Tao which is quite far south of Bangkok, it took quite a bit of travelling to get here with an overnight bus to Chumphon followed by a 2hr ferry crossing to Koh Tao. As soon as we departed the boat it was very apparent that this was a very beautiful place with long sandy beaches covered with people filled bars, harbour filled with long tail boats and a few mountains finishing off the scenery nicely.

The islands main source of income is from the numerous scuba diving centres offering fun dives and popular Padi open water training courses, this being our main purpose for visiting Koh Tao.

Upon arrival we were collected at the pier by a guy in a pickup as there are no cars on the island (not surprising going by the state of the roads) and taken to our accommodation just off Sairee beach, this was Asia Diving Resort which specialised in Padi licence training. Not long after landing we were taken to a class room to start our training and meet our diving instructor, a Finnish girl who was a really good teacher and quite pleasing to the eye.lol After a few hours training we were advised to have an early night as the main training started early the following day.

Day two and the training really began with a swimming test to start before equipment assembly, next we were ready for the water, well a quite deep swimming pool were the instructor spent most of the day training us on safety procedures and how to keep bouncy under water, it was like walking on the moon. The rest off the day was filled with more academics and even had homework to complete for the next morning. Day three of training started with some more classroom work followed with a 50 question exam then we were ready for the open sea, two dives were planned for Mango bay at the north of the island. Both dives went very well apart from some equalising problems but it wasn't enough to dampen spirits as the experience was something else, it's defiantly a weird sensation sitting at the bottom of the sea doing training procedures. To celebrate our first successful dives we treated ourselves to a good feed on the beach and a few cocktails but nothing to extravagant as we had to be ready to dive again at 7:30 the next morn.

Our final full day on Koh Tao began with another trip to the pier for our last two dives required to complete the course, these were taking place at Chumphon pinnacle and the twin rocks north west of the island. Confidence was a lot higher today as we'd got the first dives out of the way and it was time to properly enjoy the full experience, again both dives went very good experimenting with some different entry techniques and completing some final procedures under water. Finally on the second dive our instructor showed us a board 18meters down saying "you are now open water divers" which put us on a bit of a high for the rest of the dive. Overall it was a great experience and we got a good glance of the world beneath, with our dive being so early there was plenty of time to do some sight seeing on a hired scooter before meeting up with everyone later to watch an underwater video taken on the dives and receive our certification cards. The remainder of our evening was then spent checking out some of the local night life with friends we'd meet through the course and getting some much needed chill time.

Time to wrap up as we're on the move again, this time to the neighbouring island of Kho Phanagn for some serious relaxing and an evening at one of the islands famous half moon parties.

Check out the guy bending reinforcement for concrete Thai style, the concrete junky with me keeps harping on about it lol

Enjoy the pics and we'll be updating again soon.
John and Colin