Hi Guys,

Here's the full update on our time on the islands.

We did our DSD (discover scuba diving). In the morning we meat four other girls who were also keen to try diving. The six of us spent the morning learning the basics - which I had forgotten by the time we had got into the water. After being taken through the flip chart of do's and dont's we went to get our gear; a set of flippers and a wet suit. We stopped for a quick lunch and then boarded the boat.

We went out on a choppy sea (most of us felt sick) to the first dive site where we swam out and had to hold a rope while taking it in turns to perform a number of minor tasks with our gear on. It took maybe an hour but by the end of it two of the girls had decided to call it a day.

So we reboard hms up and down and carry on to our next dive site. By now the crew and our instructor is getting overly excited. We find out it is because a whale shark is in the area and these are pretty rare (our instructor who has been here for 5 years has only seen eight). We are hussled down to put our gear on and pushed to the back of the ship. I jump in first and swim away from the ship. Everyone is pointing and shouting in my direction so I look down...

To see 4 metres of sharkyness pass within a few feet of me. Poop poop. By now the rest of our group (the 3 of us still diving) have arrived and we swim towards our dive point. Claire looks down...

As the shark swims past her - full left to right about 3 feet away; bloody good view, or not if your a small fish.

We reach our dive point and go down. With a couple of false starts we return to the top and Claire decideds to go back to the boat as she cannot get her ears to equalise.

I carry on and we end up about 5 metres under water as the shark reappears. Now there are about 20 people in the water and the are all looking at me. No behind me. You turn round under water and see a shark swimming right at you and not swear! It passes right over the top of me.

(Claire says at this point it got board and swam off)

We carry on down to 10 metres and swim throught the coral and fish for what seems like forever. It is proper amazing down there. Fish above and below me. I expecially remember seeing a puffer fish.

We return to the boat and after I take all my gear off I find Claire and the others. We rock back to the coast and half a much deserved cold shower ( I hate the showers but the rooms are cheap.)

The next day we go to the beach by the islands we had dived at the previous day. It has a small beach which is often flooded by the sea but we find a small spot out the way and spend the day alternating between laying in the sun and swimming with the fishes. We have some goggles with us so we don't need to hire a snorkel. The fish are so prolific that feet from the beach their are whole showls of fish swimming beneath us. We chase them for ages.

We walk back to our taxi boat along the rickety bridges we had arrived by and return home for dinner by the sea.

Today we left Koh Tao and got the ferry boat to Koh Samui. We had booked a hotel on agoda so we knew where we were going. Its a lot bigger then the last place and has warm water (I hope). Koh Samui is a lot bigger than Koh Tao but looks like it could be fun.

Mr P