By the time I'm writing, this after nearly over a week in Koh Tao in parts I am as red as a lobster and feel as skiny as a stick-ant from all the delicious thai food. lol

Following on from the last blog, After my arrival on Koh Tao the next day I met with ACE Marine Images(the videography company) although all I needed was advanced open water and a certain number of dives, I as told in order to guarentee extra work from the dive shops I had to have a Rescue Diver qaulification(in the unlikely event something went wrong on a trip and since the videographer normally returns to the boat first it would be more handy).

I agreed and took up the Rescue Diver training with a qaulification in EFR(emergency first responder) to also fill in time for the first month which was mostly for training. I did the course over four days with Phoenix Divers on the Sairee Beach strip and first I spent the first day doing theory and practical for the EFR With Deano, a Welsh instructor who had previously wanted to do my internship but had been left skint after a trip diving in the phillipines and worked now with Phoenix Divers. this involved watching videos, tests, learning first aid, CPR, how to treat spinal injuries and setting up and providing people with oxygen, if they needed it an emergency following a dive with weak breathing.

I enjoyed this training and it would give me two years the right to help people first onsite of accidents until medics arrived and be handy as a diver with leadership skills and responsibility.

After sucessfully completeing the test and the course it was time to move on to the SSI Rescue Diver Qaulification. The next day I spent at Phoenix divers with an American instructor. Chris, doing again more theory on Rescue Diving with homework at night from a textbook on matters such as decompression sickness, saving and handling panicing divers, tired divers, unconcious divers, and narked divers. The first part after the theory involved refreashing open water skills in the pool(e.g for non divers, a little note of trivia, one such skill i had to re-demonstarte was to clear a mask of water whilst underwater!)

Myself and Chris then moved in the afternoon to 2-3 metres of the sea next to the sairee beach and I had to practice the different scenarious both under water and on the surface involving panicked, tired, unconious divers with Chris. This left me with sunburn on my arms and face from the boiling sun which would continue throughout the week.

The next day after a night of revision I took the test on Rescue diver theory and passed with flying colours on 96 out of 100. Following this triumphant moment a few hours later I was on a long boat with other divers heading to dive sites to try out my skills as if in a ''real situation'' with myself and the instructor we had a Finnish guy, Nico, who was doing his divemasters and needed to complete certain sections of his rescue diver he hadn't'' finished'' off. the dive sites where afternoon dives at Japanese Gardens and Twins at no more that 15 metres deep and myself and Nico swapped eachother as victims in the different scenarios.

When we were on the boat before and after dives often the instructor sent someone into the water crying out for Pizza(instead of help incase an alarm was raised). the idea of this drill was to act quickly, jump in with a flotation device, try and handle them and pull them back to the boat to save them. sometimes i even had to ''painfully carry them up the ladder to the boat and even though i didn't have a bcd on or a tank, some people were very heavy. i repeated this three four times that day and it got more humorous over diferent pizza orders i suggested and my lateness due to the pizza being delayed, lol.

On the last day we went off in the afternoon to the Japanese gardens again and Mango Bay to do all the scenarios underwater(one example was rescuing a narked divers by restrapping his whole BCD and tank). do a navigation drill involveing locating a weight belt in an expanding square and u shape formation in the supposed space, as if locating a missing diver. Often I would have to pretend Nico was unconcious and bring him safely to the surface(one time almost hitting sea urchins) and drag him and his equiptment to the boat and pretend to give him breath and oxygen on the boat.

The Pizza drills continued and so I obliged. In the end i enjoyed the training and would recive my cards for EFR and Rescue diver a few days later. I enjoyed the training in the water as i had missed diving and hadn't had the chance in ages to do so, now i can save divers and help injured people from accidents and hold the second highest responsibility to a divemaster over a dive crew's safety :D.

One afternoon after one of the rescue dives i went kayaking around the Sairee beach and took my stunning pictures underwater to get a feel for the job, boy was I psyched.

As for my eveinings, as homework i would eat early in the evening(Thai's often have supper between 5-7ish) and spend an hour at the Big Blu Resort bar drinking and watching Videographers with ACE Marine IMAGES show their 25 minute underwtaer films to the Open water divers with the dive shop they filmed.

I was inspired over the evenings over the week at the different styles at filming the open water divers, the scenary and the fishes with music being used to tell a story about their dives. After the bar often the Videographjer would speak to his customers to offer the DVD of the dive to be sold to them at charges I cannot confirm or clarify atm, but assume the price would be worth the effort of the film and the footage of seeing the divers happy and enjoing themselves.

Other activities in the week involved half of the legendary Koh Tao Pub Crawl, being served pancakes from Ali the pancakeman(more on him in another blog) Snorkling around the sea, kayaking and film homework(to the joy of confidential fans in the family) involving TV, and watching the underwtaer video at the Bars on the beach. Overall i start the internship training tomorrow with great excitment and have so far enjoyed Koh Tao and with many more opportunities to come I can say this has so far been the best decision I have taken.

More to come, hope you have enjoyed this blog :)