The end of our 2 month Thai journey was sealed by a new accomplishment for Troy - who is now officially PADI Open Water certified! In regular speak, this means he is now allowed to scuba dive to 18 metres by himself! It was also marked by some sad news, as we found out that Clare's great aunt had passed away back in Canada.

While on Koh Mak, we had learned that she was in palliative care, and we briefly considered flying back home to see her before she passed away. But when we had said goodbye to her in August, on some level we knew that it was maybe our final goodbye, and we felt that we had made some peace with the situation. We had some sad and reflective times once we received news in Koh Kut of her passing, and had a lot of down time at our resort. We take solace in the fact that she was always excited and supportive of our travels, and in fact, was the first person Clare knew who had travelled to Thailand. She loved her adventures, and so we keep on adventuring with her in our hearts.

Meanwhile, under the water, the two of us began a 3 day Open Water diving certification. Clare decided quickly at 1 metre below the surface that life was not meant to be lived that way, and that was the end of her scuba experience. Troy took to the activity like a fish to water (ha), and completed all of his theory and 4 official dives to get his qualification! On the last day Clare joined him and his team on the boat out to Koh Rang Marine Park and snorkelled around while the others finished up their dives. We were once again blessed with beautiful sea conditions, and perhaps saw the biggest concentration of fish thus far - felt like being in an aquarium! We have recently learned how to upload videos, so there are some new ones under the "Videos" tab on the blog to check out for anyone interested!

Both of these events were quite tiring, so we were relieved that we had built in an extra night back in Bangkok before moving on to Cambodia, to finish some practical tasks without rushing around. And that is a wrap for the lovely country of Thailand! (Is there time for one more Thai massage??)