After a relaxing few days in Koh Phangan we headed to Koh Tao where we had planned to do our a 4 day PADI Open Water scuba diving course. We had read that Koh Tao is one of the best places in the world to scuba as it is so beautiful underwater and it is also really cheap! The day we arrived we went straight off the ferry to Crystal dive resort where we would complete our course. We met two guys from England who were also going to be on the same course as us and were staying on the same resort as us. We weren't staying on the actual resort of the diving school we were on Sairee Beach which is much nicer and has more going on. After signing up we went to our nice little bungalow, dumped our stuff and headed to the beach before our first session in the classroom for the theory side of the course. We soon realised that there wasn't much that we could remember from science GCSE!

On the second we had an early start at 7am and had to do even more theory as we had had a late start the day before. After becoming official scuba buddies we learnt how to put all the equipment together and then we headed for the pool to start learning the safety skills such as removing your mask and breathing equipment underwater, which we would later have to do in the sea. In the afternoon we went back to the theory work, (which went from science to maths - great) needless to say we were both even more confused by the end of the day to the point where we actually did some revision for the test that we were going to have the next day. We got made fun on for this as nobody revises because its actaully impossible to fail! In the evening we went out for dinner with the guys from our group and another group from Crystal and their instructor.

The next day we had our swimming tests and a short session in the pool. Afterwards we had our exam, thankfully it was very much a 'team effort' however our instructor wasn't quite so impressed. In the afternoon we had our first two dives at 10 and 8 metres. Our first dive was at Mango Bay and the second at Japaneese Gardens . Both of us had some trouble with equalizing our ears which was frustrating but we completed both dives and saw the beautiful fish and coral. On our first dive we saw a massive school of baracuda fish which was amazing.

Our last day we had our final dives at White Rock and Twins. We had to finish off our underwater tests but afterwards we got to swim amoungst the coral and the fish which was amazing. We both liked the Christmas Tree worms which were really colourful but closed when you swam over them. We got back from our dives at lunchtime and were officially qualified as scuba divers! In the afternoon we hired motorcycles with two guys from our resort and decided to explore the island. Harri was very pleased to find herself a pink bike and Britt happily climbed on her blue one. We tried to be safety conscious and ask for helmets but when we did the lady just laughed at us!! We negotiated some interesting hills and pot holes along the way and found some beuatiful beaches and chilled out bars made perfect pit stops. During our final dives every group has a videographer who dives with them and films you for the day and in the evening everyone who has finished their course on that day goes to the dive centre bar to have a few drinks and watch all the videos. After that we went out to dinner with the other groups that were on our boat that day before heading to Cloud 9, one of the rooftop bars there. A few buckets later we headed for Lotus bar which was closer to our bungalow and continued the celebrations there.

We really enjoyed our course and now feel slightly more prepared for the Great Barrier Reef where we are hoping to do a dive! Our next stop is Penang in Malaysia where we will be staying with Harri's family friends Rajpal and Shindi. Hope you are all well and we will try to update you again soon. xxx