Our bigger group went onto Ko Tao from Ko Phangan and we had a really lovely boat to take us there! We decided to stay at 'Bans' dive resort as we'd heard really good reviews about them from several people on our travels. The resort was right on the beach again and the beach was stunning! The first day we were there Rich, John, Beth and me got kayaks out and went kayaking in the sea. It was so incredibly hot out there but the sea was so clear and we could see the coral from the kayaks. We booked onto our open water dive course and had to do some classroom training that evening. Rich couldn't do the whole course as he was leaving to go home but the rest of us went back to school! It really was like being back at school, although the teacher was really nice and actually had a laugh with us! He left us to the boring part of watching 3 hours worth of PADI video though which was sooooooo boring!! We had to answer some questions about what we'd learnt as homework but they gave us the answers the next day in class anyway!! We were banned from drinking alcohol for the entire course as well so no partying! Which was actually quite hard as the place we were staying had some really good live bands and their own resident DJ!! We managed to resist though! I think more out of nerves than anything else as they'd told us that you use up more air when you've got a hangover.
We had another lesson the next day which was a bit more interesting than the previous day and no boring videos to watch!! The more interesting part came in the afternoon though when we actually got to get all our diving gear on for the first time. It was quite exciting choosing our fins, BCD's (jackets that keep you afloat!), regulators (for breathing) and masks. We learnt about how to use the gas tanks as well. We met our instructor, Mario, a German who lived in Ko Tao (he told us a story about his house burning down the previous year and all he could do was watch it burn from the dive school!!). He'd been diving for years! He was also very sarcastic and we were kind of afraid to ask questions in case he was sarcastic to us!!
We had to do various skills in the swimming pool so that if events ever occurred in the sea then we'd know how to deal with them. All of them we did underwater. Firstly we had to partially flood and fully flood our masks and then clear them, which you do by blowing out of your nose and pressing the top of the mask whilst tilting your head upwards. The second thing we had to do was take out our breathing apparatus and let it go, then find it and put it back in your mouth. Other things were taking our masks off and putting them back on again, and then learning how to use your 'buddies' (you always have to dive with a 'buddy') breathing apparatus if you run out of air. We also learnt how to keep ourselves neutrally buoyant by using weights. We were advised not to wear wetsuits as the waters so warm so we didn't need as many weights as some of the other places we might dive.
John didn't enjoy the pool part, I think he didn't like the breathing underwater, so he finished the course there which was a shame.
Rich had to leave the next day but we couldn't give him a proper party send off as we were all off the alcohol!
We did our first 2 dives the following day. We went off the boat using a buoy line and descended to around 10m for the first dive. It was a very weird experience but also very cool! I was concentrating more on my breathing than actually watching the fish and coral but it was pretty cool! One fish took a shine to me and kept eating my leg! I think it was some kind of cleaner wrasse and they like dead skin!! Mario turned into a different person underwtare too! He really looked after us (even the boys had a bit of a crush on him by the end of the course!!)! We had to do some of the skills that we'd learnt in the pool and he really helped us out, high 5ing us when we done it right and helping us out if we didn't. I really felt safe with him and my worries about diving disappeared! Our second dive we saw a little family of clown fish with a tiny baby!
The next day we did 2 more dives which meant we were qualified open water divers! We went down to 18m which is as far as you're allowed to go in the open water course. The first dive I had real trouble with my ears. You have to make sure you equalise as you go down the buoy line and I had real trouble. It's frustrating as if one of you has a problem, the rest of the group has to wait. I don't think people minded too much as we were all new to it though and everyone had had the same problem at some point. The second dive though was amazing!!! We'd been mainly around the corals before seeing the reef fish but this time we ventured more out into the blue and it felt like we were flying!! It was so cool!! There were 6 of us in our group, with Mario at the front and a girl called Poppy who was a dive master at the back! It was just the most surreal feeling like being suspended in air and just having shoals of fish swim in front of your face! The breathing is actually quite cool as well, watching the bubbles rise to the surface! I really felt like I actually got it by the last dive and I was officially a diver! We were even allowed to do somersaults on our last dive! We were fimed that day too and they put the viseo on a big screen for us all to watch in the evening (after a few drinks which we were allowed - yay!). It was funny watching us all underwater and on the boat gearing up! The dvd was so expensive though that none of us cheapskate travellers bought it!
We had a night out with our dive group in the evening which consisted of buckets and lots of glow paint! It was well deserved though!

Beth and me enjoyed the diving so much that we decided to do the advanced course. We had a day off to get over our hangovers and started the day after. There were 4 others on our course too and we luckily had Mario as our dive instructor again - yay!!
We had to do some more classroom stuff in the morning but it wasn't too much and Mario just talked us through all the information we'd need. We got to do 2 dives that day starting with a deep dive. We were able to go to 30m and we all had depth gauges this time to see how far fown we were. It didn't feel too much deeper to be honest. Some people experience nitrogen narcosis at 30m which is a bit like being drunk but none of us in our group got it! Mario asked us to answer a simple maths question when we were down there to make sure we didn't have it! As we'd gone so deep we had to do a safety stop on the way up, which was 3 minutes at 5m. We had to learn all about nitrogen levels and pressures and stuff in our theory and the safety stop helps to get rid of some of the nitrogen from your body. The second dive we did was a navigation dive and we had to go off in our buddy teams with a map and a compass and work our way around a dive site. This sounded ok to me until Mario said that he'd be going back to the boat and having a coffee!!! It was a scary thought, but actually when we got underwater it was ok! He came down with us and made us do some exercises so that we knew how far certain distances were and then left us to it! Beth and me actually really enjoyed ourseles and we felt free! We didn't actually navigate the way we were supposed to but never mind! We made our way back to the boat and that's all that matters!!
The next day we did 3 dives to complete our advanced course. The first and second we did photography and fish id. So the first dive Beth had the camera and I had a table with fish on it but I could basically just swim around looking at the fish! I loved that dive, I think it was my favourite as I didn't have to think about anything else apart from how pretty the fish were! There are no tests to see if you can actually identify fish at the end of it! The second dive I had the camera and had fun with that. We got to keep a copy of all the photo's we took. I won't be becoming an underwater photographer any time soon!!
The third dive was a night dive. I was nervous but excited at the same time. I really didn't enjoy it though. It wasn't the dark that I didn't like, but for some reason everything seemed to go wrong for me! First of all I was overweighted as I had a torch and an extra weight, then I managed to scrape my leg on the coral which stung all the way round, then I got kicked in the head and then I was low on air before anyone else and I couldn't attract Mario's attention with my torch as the beam of light was so crap!! So I panicked!! I couldn't tell if he'd heard me or not and I wasn't sure if we were going to the surface as we came up differently to when it's day. But it all worked out ok in the end!! We saw some barraccuda, an octopus and stingray down there which were really cool and there was phospherescence too. That was really cool! If you move your hands around all of the plankton glows, or if you watch the persons fins in front of you they leave a trail of glowing plankton, it's very cool!
So we are officially advanced open water divers now!! Scary thought!!