I completed my final 2 dives today (deep dive & underwater photography) so am now officially certified as PADI Advanced Open Water Diver! Getting five dives in over a couple of days was great experience and I feel a lot more comfortable down there. The sites we dove today were amazing, but with very strong current so it was a good challenge. There are local twins who have both been certified Rescue Divers and each dove with me over the past couple days. ...

We had a great day today at Surin National marine park and dove at 2 locations there. It was a full day so gave us a chance to get to know some of the people at the resort - primarily Brits & Europeans and a young couple from Sweden. There's one dive intern here from BC but otherwise no North Americans at all. I was able to complete 3 dives at Surin including the navigation dive that I was struggling to do here due to the conditions. Colin did the 2 dives...

Colin completed his 'Discover Scuba' skills today and is all ready for our trip to Surin National Marine park. He says he enjoyed it, and it will only be better when he gets to do two dives in such an amazing place - apparently lots to see there! My diving hasn't gotten off to as good of a start - the plan was to do my Navigation dive here as an offshore dive, and we made an attempt yesterday and today but the conditions were not cooperating so I just ended up ...

We're both overcome with a very somber feeling after a walk down the beach last night before sunset. There is essentially no sign of the tsunami that hit this island back in Dec 2004 here at the resort, except for the memorial that is located on top of a rocky hill that overlooks the expanse of beach, but as we walked past the end of the resort property the miles of beach that extends south is littered with what the water left behind. The trees are stripped and...

All in all a very lazy day today, but after tomorrow our days will be busy with diving so we're enjoying it while we can. They came and served us a wonderful Thai meal of soup (made with a local grass, similar to yellow-grass), yellow curry seafood, steamed fish, cashew chicken, stir fry broccoli and of course - rice. Dessert is almost always fruit, and they had created a beautiful fruit plate with heart-shaped pieces. Earlier in the day they delivered a flora...