Koh Tao & Scuba

We got a morning boat over to Koh Tao... about an hour and a half away... but had to walk to Mikes place in the morning as he had forgotten to get more money out to pay for his room. Me and sar left an hour for this... we should have learned from previous experience... things ALWAYS take Mike twice as long as the average person and we ended up on a sprint back to our resort to check out and catch the bus over to Thong Sala or the ferry to Koh Tao! THEN...we decided we were hungry and wanted breakfast.. this took FOREVER and we ended up with a couple of minutes to spare... sprinting... YET AGAIN... with our massive bags to this packed ferry where we just sat with our legs dangling over the side sunning ourselves!!! when will we learn!!!

Anyway.. we met a bloke called Tony on our way over and he came with us to Crystal Dive Resort. I had done some research into dive schools and this one had looked good and been recommended by quite a few people. There were numerous touts on the ferry trying to lure us into their dive resort but we were strong and stuck with Crystal and i'm so glad we did!!!

We got a deal... 9000 baht for the 4 day open water dive course AND accommodation.. thats about 150 quid...me, Sar and Mike squidged in one room but it was ok! Naturally had the ant infestation in the bathroom but we are used to this by now. Also had some lovely sound effects from the jungle like mooing cows every night which we found out were the frogs!!! One night we woke in the early hours to find one in our bathroom.... GOING FOR IT!!! SO LOUD!!! HAHAH.. funny!

Our group was lovely, me, Sar, Mike, Tony and a couple from Norway with their friend. Our instructor, Nathan Cook, was GREAT!!! Couldn't have asked for a nicer instructor. Very funny too!

Our first 2 days on the course were classroom and swimming pool based. We ventured out into the sea to practise and I was feeling quite confident.... until we were asked to take our masks off under water!

The third day we did our open water training dives 1 and 2 after all passing our theory part which was surprisingly difficult! Well... dive 1 did NOT go well for me!! I was feeling a little uneasy anyway bcs i had a different regulator (mouthpiece thing) and BCD (jacket thing) and my mask wasn't fitting right. The visability wasn't great on our first dive at Mango Bay... and after about 15 mins me, Sar and Mike became lost from the group. It was very scary not being able to see above, below or around and just deciding to come up on our own knowing it was very dangerous to do this too quickly and we didn't have enough experience to know what was too fast!!!! I think i had some kind of panic attack bcs when i got out of the water i could hardly move! I had absolutely no energy and Sar had to literally drag me over to the boat!!! Well... this was one of our surface skills.... dragging somebody who was unconscious so it was good practice for Sar!!! We had about an hour until our next dive and i just lazed out on the boat not talking to anyone!!! I just didnt think i could do it and was starting to think that diving wasnt for me anyway!! But we stopped and all started diving off the boat and i seemed to get my energy back and decided to go for it and try again. The 2nd dive was amazing!!!! We got right to the bottom... only about 14m but was still a big deal for me!!! And whilst sitting on the sea bed with the beautiful colourful tropical fish swimming all around us... we did our mask and regulator skills!!! i was fine!!! This dive was at Japanese Gardens and the visability was BRILLIANT!!!

The next day we had our open water training dives number 3 and 4 at White Rock and Twins and we went to 18m! I can honestly say these 2 dives were the most surreal and mind boggling experiences of my life!! diving is like a whole new world where you feel like you are actually a fish!!! it is so calming and we saw some spectacular sea life... stingrays, scorpian fish, sea cucumbers (my fave!), groper fish, clown fish, butterfly fish and loads more! The coral is amazing too... the colours are so vivid and bright.. We had a camera man with us all day and Sar has taken the dvd home with her so ask her if you wanna see!!! hahah!!!

Anyway... we stayed in the bar at Crystal that night and watched our dvd on the big screen and everyone congratulated us on becoming open water divers!!! then we decided to leave on a night boat that night at 11pm to make our way to Railey beach.... this is a story in itself!!!!

More in next blog....