After a rather exhausting journey down from Chiang Mai which involved a 9 hour overnight bus, a flight to Surat Thani, a rather expensive 2 hour taxi to Chumphon and a 2 hour boat journey we finally arrived in Koh Tao. Koh Tao is a tiny island, about 16km long and 2-3km wide, in the Gulf of Thailand. It's main draw is that the seas surrounding it are teeming with coral and all types of fish and therefore the diving here is amazing.

We signed up to do our Open Water Dive ticket and settled into our beach side bungalow and enjoyed the laid back atmosphere along the beach restaurants and bars in Sairee watching the fire jugglers playing with their poys and sticks after dark, and even marvelling at a 4 year old copying his dad with his own fire poys. We'd signed up with a company called Crystal Dive and we were lucky enough to get Justin Mayers, a really down to earth guy and a great and very experienced dive instructor as our 'teacher'. After 2 days in a classroom learning the academics of diving, a test to make sure we'd understood everything and a half day in the pool practising skills like clearing our masks and what to do in an out of air situation we finally got into the sea for our first proper dive.

At first it all feels a little weird and I kept having to remember to breathe but after a while it just starts to seem normal and you just relax and enjoy the feeling of swimming with the fishies. Our first day the sea was incredibly choppy, with the boat being battered from all sides by the huge waves, and the visibility wasn't great but the second day was so much better. We were hooked! 4 dives just wan't enough so we signed up to do our Advanced dive course too with 5 more dives and much more time underwater to go exploring. We got down to 30 metres which is the deepest we can go as advanced divers and although I was a bit scared it turns out that once you're underwater it really makes no difference whatsoever how deep you are. It feels like flying under the water slightly and once you get used to it it really does just come naturally. We saw the most beautiful corals and all types of amazingly colourful and diverse fish; batfish, angelfish, parrotfish, catfish, groupers, snapper, anemone fish, tiny mantas shrimp, too many to list and all incredibly beautiful. Unfortunately no turtles or whale sharks. But we're definitely hooked and already planning our dives in Borneo and maybe even Cambodia.

Wish we could have stayed for longer (much longer) on Koh Tao but we had a plane to catch. Very sad to leave but I have no doubt we'll be back. Now I understand how so many people get stuck in island life - its a little slice of paradise!