The next morning we awoke early to leave the island of Ko Phangan, the guy who ran the hostel was nice enough to drive our very heavy bags up that horrible hill on his moped!! You would not believe how hot it was so that helped us out a huge deal!! We then waited for a Tuk Tuk to take us back to the pier so we could make our way to Ko Tao. We waited at the pier for a while and were hounded by all these representatives from different dive resorts, thankfully we had been recommended one of the best ones on the island so agreed to get his taxi when we got off. We then boarded the speed ferry (which took forever there was nothing speedy about it!!) the sea was really choppy, more than it had been in a while due to all the boat movements for the full moon party so needless to say we slept the whole way to avoid the sea sickness!!

When we arrived there we got on the back of this taxi with about fourteen other people all holding on to our luggage to make sure it didn't fall off. We arrived at the resort and were given a tour of the rooms and an overview of what the PADI scuba diving course would be like. We took this opportunity to do a bit of haggling and succeeded; we even got the room for free when we agreed to sign up for the course.

We then went for a quick snooze (forty winks) before we had to go back for our orientation, this was about three hours long, it was like being back at school, we were in a classroom being taught the basics of the PADI course and then had to watch three very Americanised videos!! This was the most painful part of the course. We were told that the next day we were going to have a bit more theory and then get in the swimming pool to put into practice what we would have learnt so far. Then the following couple of days after that we would be doing four dives and our final exam.

The next day we had a pretty early morning to get a bit more theory drummed into us and then after lunch we were kitted out with all the gear needed, we looked hot in our wetsuits!! We were then asked to do a swim test which consisted of ten lengths of the pool. We weren't too impressed at this seeing as we hadn't signed on for all this exercise, but managed to do it. After that we were told to tread water for about five minutes, I don't really know what the point was as when we had the gear on we would always be floating on the surface, but then again maybe it was just for them to laugh at us. We were then shown how to put all the equipment together and how to dismantle it, we did this a few times to get the hang of it. Then it was time for our first entry, it was a very weird sensation being in the water with all this kit on, what was very heavy at the side of the pool was weightless when inside the pool. So we then spent quite a bit of time learning to breathe under water with the regulator, it was really strange and took a while to get the hang of it. Once this was second nature to us we were shown a few skills all under water that we were going to have to do in the sea, these included filling and clearing our masks of water, practicing being out of air, then sharing our buddy's alternate source, what to do if our regulator came out of our mouth and buoyancy control. We both took to these like ducks to water J

The next morning was a very early one, we had to be ready to get on a boat at 7.30 am, this was incredibly difficult for us to understand, I mean we are on holiday!! But once we got over it we were rearing to go. We took a taxi to the pier and clambered on to the dive boat, we then were to a site called Aow Leuk which means deep water, but really wasn't as it was only about 10m. Seems was feeling a bit worse for wear on the boat over as the sea was quite rough so had a sea sickness tablet and felt a bit better but was told being in the water would be so much better for her. So after our briefing we got our gear on did out buddy checks and entered the water, the day was a bit cloudy but the water visibility was clear. So we then made our first decent to nine metres, Sheens had problems with equalizing her ears so it took her a while to get down there, eventually when everyone got down we did some buoyancy control and then went for a thirty minute tour of that dive site, both of us seemed to be a bit apprehensive about our breathing so didn't really take in the surroundings much.

When we got back to the boat we had an hour's break where we ate lots of biscuits and were briefed for dive number two which was done in the same place, only this time we had to do some skills, which were to half fill our mask of water and then clear it and pretend one of us was out of air and had to signal to our buddy to share their air.

The second entry to the sea was fine but then on the decent Seems had severe problems with her ears equalizing, so had to end her dive and sit this one out, the pain was just too much. She would have the opportunity to try again later that day.

So again on the second dive after all the skills and we had a tour of the site and Sheens had to have another buddy. Although forty minutes is a long time it felt like about fifteen minutes, we then ascended but Sheens did it a bit too quickly and had some pain in her ears for the rest of the evening but disappeared during the night.

So after our de-brief we made our way back to the resort, had some lunch and went back to the classroom for more theory, which no-one could keep their eyes open for. Seems had a quick nap and then went back out there to do the skills that she missed doing earlier. She had another buddy with her who had a few problems on the second dive as well, this worked out quite well for her as there was just two of them and an instructor. They just went by the resort rather than going out on a boat again and completed the skills necessary. I think the swim back from where they were killed Seems more than anything!!

The following day was our last day and we had our exam in the morning which we both passed with only a few wrong answers. We got most of our paper work sorted and then were back on the boat on our way to another dive site, dive number three was done at Japanese Gardens, a few more skills were done this time and we increased our depth to eighteen metres. We didn't see much on this dive as the visibility was very poor.

So after we all surfaced we went to another site called White Rock, this was our best dive yet. The entry to the water was quite bad as well as the descent as there was a strong current, so that was a bit challenging but it was a good thing we experienced it on the course. We saw a lot on this dive, a trigger fish, stingray and jelly fish plus loads of other types of fish. We also got to use compasses for the first time on this dive and had to practice navigating our buddy north and south.

When we got back to the resort we had a few hours to relax and shower before the whole group was going to meet up for dinner to get drunky and to watch the dvd which had been made of the last two dives. Luckily the both of us had managed to avoid the Mr Camera-man even whilst being underwater. Score!