After meeting James and Fabby I needed a bit of a break from the Singha beer. I knew that Ko Tao was the place to get my Open Water PADI certification so I was looking forward to doing something a bit constructive.

I found Siam Diving in Sairee beach that chucked in free accomodation with the Open Water. They gave me a bungalow which was a bit of a bonus. The course involves theory and testing, with a confined water dive, and 4 open water dives upto 18m. The confined water dive is usually in a pool, but fortunately with Siam they do it in shallow sea water which is more interesting. My instructor Savino who was a pretty funny Italian guy. As it worked out no one had signed up that day so it was one to one tuition which was much better for me.

I'd dived once before in Jamaica so it wasn't all new, and after passing the exams the first open water dive was a bit boring, I hoped it would get better. It did, because the the other sites were much better as they went down to 30m, and even though I couldn't go down that far, it was much more exciting in the water because of the sense of space and the wildlife is more varied. We also went through a couple of caves which got the heart pumping. So after 3.5 days I'd got my certification.

Koh Tao is a really cool place. The Lotus resort which is where I was staying had the coolest bar on the beach and the 4 days were really relaxing. I was tempted to stay and do my Advanced diver course for another couple which includes deep diving to 30m and night diving as well as a few others. In the end I decided that I'll do this when I hit Malaysia to give me some variation on where I've dived on the whole trip.

Everyone here is now starting to head to the Full Moon party in Ko Phangan. I've heard so much about this party and everyone seems to plan their travel agenda around the monthly event. Anyway after 4 days R&R I'm ready for it.