It's been a while so I will fill you in on what's been happening! So we have been in Koh Tao for the last week. It is the most beautiful place I have ever been to. Rikki agrees. So lets start from the beginning:

Saturday the 19thth of December: So marina has stayed behind in Ao Nang and Rikki and I headed off to begin The adventures of Koh Tao. Today all we did was travel. We bused then caught the overnight ferry to Koh Tao.. What a night that boat ride was: cards, rain, lightning, Olli, wasabi peas, then finally falling asleep to the rocking of the boat!

Sunday the 20th of December: We arrived at big blue diving school at 7am in the morning to discover a spot of heaven.. White sand, turquoise ocean, decks reAching out to the water, reggae music, cushions, bean bags, sun and lots of good looking people! We started the day with a banana/ strawberry shake and headed to bed for the arv and we fell asleep to the pitter patter of rain outside! At 4pm we began our openwater dive course with our instructor paulie! He is a big guy with a big heart. He loves his job and we love him teaching us. He is from Halifax and loves to get on the beer. First dive lesson was just watching a few videos on how to set up equipment, how it works etc. We finished up with a lump of homework and a little thirsty so we headed to the decks for beers and a catch up with our Irish sis Siobhan! She has been teaching in Krabi for the last month. Boy I missed that girl. Tonight was the night we met our gold coast friend Tony who is a crazy cat. We chatted, drank and rapped our way through our homework! Next stop lotus.. Lotus is a beach bar that always ends crazy! Tonight we danced, sang, boogied, drank dirty whisky buckets and lost The Bag!! Riks camera, my eftpos card, paw paw cream and money NOOOOO! Great night!

Monday the 21st of December: Woke up with chang overs!! For those who are unaware a chang over is caused by too many changes (beer).. oh well there was diving to be done..8:30am we had our first skills lesson in the water! Siobhan was unsure but we certainly were.. we took to it like a fish to water.. Skills include: Mask clearing, mask removal, weight belt removal, Reg removal etc.! We finally exited the water at 5:30pm and found a cute little Mexican place for dinner where we salivated over our big pizza as it was the first western meal in a while. Then antics with tony began.. Cards, jumping on bed, darceeedy, Thai squeels, Chang chang chang, Sio BHANNNNNNNN! Siobhan arrived with more chang, cornettos and nuts! Gotta love her! Another great night in Koh Tao.

Tuesday the 22nd of December: Awoke at 8:30am for another early start. It was our first real dive! First stop white rock. Greatest depth 12.1m, bottom time 39min, we explored the reef and repeated our skills. Second dive was at Twins. Greatest depth 12m, bottom time 53mins, practiced buoyancy skills, saw a white eyed moray eel and a blue spotted ray. Coral and fishies were amazing at both places. Arvo changes and the chang chang chang antics were born! Lotus called once mor: beer on Siobhan, mikey got lucky, dancing in the water too much fun!

Wednesday the 23th of December: Woke up early once again and prepared ourselves for our 18m dive at Chumpon Pinnicle, a deep dive spot in the middle of knowhere. Siobhan was behind on her skills but came along for the ride anyway. What a mistake that was. What appeared to be glassy water for definitely not, huge waves for the 55minutes it took us to get out there. If you have been on the highland see sick you will understand! Most people were sea sick! Rik and I are still scratching our heads about how we managed to keep it in even with a dirty big hangover on top of that! Finally getting in the water we felt instantly at ease… and down the rope we went. Yeah BOI!! At 18m I was having a look around and a massive 2.5m bull shark came out of nowhere and swam right past.. It was the first time I have cried underwater! By the end of the dive we had seen 4 sharks in total! Sooooo scary. I was clinging on to Paulies tank and hiding! I have swam with sharks! INSANE! We also saw a huge school of barracuda, lion fish, and an amazing aray of colourful soft/hard coral! Beautiful! Oh and we have now received SSI openwater certificate thank you very much!

That night we arrived home pooped and snuck of for early showers then bed!

Thursday the 24th of December:this morning we both woke up feeling great, so we decided on going for a walk up to the lookout! Near the top the path ran alongside a beautiful white house on the side of the mountain with stunning panoramic views! A guy called Lincoln popped his head out the window and hollered for us to talk a walk up onto his roof as its best view from the house! So up the bridge thing we went and found ourselves looking at a postcard! It was that spectacular! Look out for pics. So back down from the roof we met Joy, Lincoln's mum. She was so kind, we even got to come inside and take a look around. WOW! They don't have houses like this in AUS. There are boulders and trees sticking out from the floor which they have just built around. The shower was a piece of copper pipe wrapped around a boulder (inside the house) with a shower head attached! Mmmmm so cool! Back at bigblue Siobhan, Rik and I just chilled out on the beach all day! In the afternoon Siobhan invited us over with Michael and Jason for a little Christmas party in her nice airconned 1000 baht a day room! She gave us chrissy pressies! What a cute afternoon. For dinner we headed to big blue for the chrissy eve buffet (thanks to matt, rikki's friend in Aus). YUMMMM! Prawns prawns, curry everything you could imagine!! The 12 of us from dive school have linked up and we headed off to boogies and kick on down the beach at the bars.. ban dive school was definitely the coolest place that night.. bubbles, podiums, fire twirlers, fireworks, fire shows yehaaa! Such a fun night!

Friday the 25th of December: Christmas day Rikki and I awoke and unwrapped our pressies mumma had given us the week before in Ao Nang. Licorice, lilies, rocky road, mags, books! Siobhan, Mike, Rik and I spoilt ourselves for breakfast at new Heaven! Omelet, beans, hashbrowns ad bread! Sooo good! Chilled out on the beach in the morning and that afternoon we began our SSI advanced adventurer course! Great way to be spending Christmas - underwater! Afternoon sesh with the crew: changs, pizza, chrissy and Lea antics, drunken andy and off to lotus!

Saturday the 26th of December: Last day in Koh Tao, we spent it diving at Chumpon. Visibility wasn't the best, but no sharks thank god! Rik dived with a cracked mask the silly girl! Last night out I spent it with the girls - layla (hippy/electro girl from switz) and Siobhan and we laughed about all the crazy antics that had occurred over the past week! Rikki had a big one and peaked a little to early and Liam the amazing boy brought her home for a good night sleep!

Just a quick re-cap: I love it here sooo much! Sad to leave but Koh Phanang is next stop! Bring it on I say!

Xxx Pruey