22nd-26th Feb - Koh Tao

Another early morning for another early ferry to the chilled out Koh Tao. It was a brisk hour and a half to the secluded island. As soon as we arrived we got mobbed by taxi men/women begging for business. But we both ignored them as Ross had reserved a hotel room through a facebook group for our hotel (new way of booking things :D) so we had to look for our hotel name. We soon found them and they took us straight to our resort. We soon booked into our room and we could finally relax a little bit.

After a tasty lunch, Brad booked himself onto a 4day Open Water Diving Course, and at the same time Ross signed up for a couple of casual dive trips as he's already got his diving qualification.

That evening we just chilled out and went on a stroll to see what was about, we found small laid back bars and resturants on the beach playing old school music. It was really relaxing compared to the messiness of Koh Phangan. We soon headed back as we were shattered and needed an early night due to Ross's diving starting in the morning.

The next day Ross had a refresher course at 8am in the pool and was finished by 11am, meanwhile Brad was still tucked up in bed as his course started at 3pm.

At 12noon Ross left on his first trip in which he would do 2 dives in the afternoon, during these dives he saw an array of weird and wonderful fish, including one of the most deadliest sea snakes in the world which swam within inches of his face. He found it very amusing. While Ross was on his boat, Brad started his course, unfortunatley for him it was only theory which he found very boring, but everyone has to do it. That night we just chilled out again as we both had diving to focus on in the morning

Next morning Brad had to be up early has he had a full day of practice in the swimming pool before they let him out in the sea. Ross once again chilled out again till midday and then jumped on another boat for another 2 dives. The dive sights out in Koh Tao are extremely clear and filled with amazing aquatic animals. Ross was loving life this day. When Ross got back from his diving Brad had finished for the day so we got dinner. We soon headed into town to find a bar, after a few beers we headed home and we got approached by a couple of people who encouraged Ross to stay out (suprise) while Brad went home as he had another early morning dive. Ross ended up getting in around 5am smashed :) Brad was not best pleased, but he got over it pretty quickly.

The next day Brad did a full day of practice, both theory and his first dive in the deep blue sea, he absolutely loved it and looked forward to his next day after seeing all the same animals Ross had seen the following 2days. While Brad was busy seeing amazing things Ross was revitalising himself with plenty of water, he drunk around 6litres of water and still felt rough lol....serves him right.

That night we were walking into town and someone called Brads name, which made him jump out of his skin, and to our suprise it was a girl called emily who he works with at the pub, we ended up spending the night with them, dinner and few bevys. Brad got a new record on the strawpedo challenge and was written up on the wall of fame lol. We then hit the sack as we both had to be up at 6am for an extremely eraly dive.

The next morning we woke up blurry eyed due the ridiculous time. We got all our equipment prepared and then set off with bothg of us on the same boat for the first time. We headed to a site called Chumphon Pinnacles, around 45mins ride from the bay. As soon as we got underwater we immediatley realised that this would be our best dive due to the amount of fish and colourful coral. At one point we were swimming through a massive shoal of giant barracuda, it was absolutly amazing and something we will never forget. There is quiet often black tipped sharks at this site but unfortunatley we didn't see anything. Not going to complain too much though because it was still amazing. We soon headed to our second dive which was once again incredible. We then booked the night boat from Koh Tao to Surat Thani and checked out our hotel ready for the long trip infront of us

P.S to those wondering about photos, we're having extreme difficulty uploading photos at the moment so please bare with us :)

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