Koh Tao has some of the cheapest diving in the world; therefore, we went here to get Kristin certified before heading to other destinations with even better diving. So as soon as we got to the island and off the ferry, we made our way to New Way Dive Shop. There's over 48 dive shops on the small island, so Kristin researched the companies ahead of time to find a reputable, professional company to go with.
We arrived to Koh Tao around lunch and Kristin started her coursework later that afternoon. We were thankful her diving course included accommodation (even if it was a basic bungalow with just a fan), because the island was busting at the seems with travelers and there were no other rooms available. We were there at the peak time of high season (Christmas to soon after New Years). There were four guys from the dive shop that got to the island the day before and had no where to sleep, so they had to sleep on the beach for the night and they got eaten alive by mosquitoes! Matt signed up to do a Scuba Review since he hadn't dove in over 2 years, but he was really excited to get back into it. It worked out well because Matt ended up being on the same boat as Kristin for his review and another afternoon we were on the same boat for our dives.
 |
| 2 groups doing our open water certs |
 |
| Gear set up and ready to go |
 |
| Early morning boat ride out to the dive site |
 |
| Kristin and her dive buddy, Isa, after their last dive (certified divers now) |
After 3 1/2 days of classwork, learning skills in the water, and a few dives Kristin received her open water diver certification! This means that she can now dive to a depth of 18m. Although the water conditions weren't amazing, Kristin got certified for cheap and Matt got in plenty of dives (9 to be exact). Kristin said the hardest part about the course for her was doing a couple of the mask skills underwater, ie- full flooding of the mask and the mask removal. For someone who breathes a lot through their nose, it was hard to remember to not breathe through your nose when your mask is flooded ;-). But, she got the hang of it and is ready for more diving!
Oh, I (Kristin) almost forgot to mention one of the most exciting moments of the course. The afternoon of our first real dive we were on the boat setting up our gear before heading in the water. Suddenly the captain starts yelling (in Thai) and pointing to the water. All the dive masters start yelling at us to hurry up and put on our gear and get in the water. What? Why? What's going on? "There's a whale shark!!". Ohhh. For us newbies we couldn't figure out the gear fast enough so our instructors said forget it, just grab your snorkels and fins and jump in! There was a young whale shark (maybe 2-4 meters) just swimming around. Don't worry, whale sharks are filter feeders so they're not dangerous. It was the coolest thing!!! Adult whale sharks can be up to 12 meters. This one was no where near that big, but still amazing to see. The whale shark wasn't phased the least by all of the swimmers in the water. It just swam around and let us all oooh and ahhhh at it :-). There were divers below it, above it, in front of it, next to it, and nothing bothered it. We swam with it for about ten minutes before our instructors said it was time to get back to business. In all the commotion I forgot to grab the water camera, so I didn't get any pictures of it, but here's one from wikipedia so you can see what one looks like. I did manage to get a picture of what it looked like with all the swimmers in the water, haha.
We decided the day after Kristin got certified would be a good day to test out her diving skills and go to Sail Rock, one of the best dive spots in the gulf of Thailand. Kristin was only certified to go to 18m and the best stuff at Sail Rock is deeper, so she did an adventure deep dive with a group in order to get certified to go to 30m. Matt already has his advanced certification so he was good to go.
We had a great time and saw an incredible amount of fish. Our water camera can only go to 10m, so it's a snorkeling camera, not a diving one, thus no pictures :-(. But we saw all kinds of fish: yellow tailed barracudas, angel fish, clownfish, bat fish, and tons of others. We also saw a giant moray eel hiding out in his hole! It was kinda scary looking, so we didn't get too close.
 |
| Thanks google :-) |
We really enjoyed being on Koh Tao. It was nice to be in one spot for a while, and it was a great place to relax on the beach. Nice to be out of the hustle and bustle of the cities. Not to mention we had some great Thai food while there. Oh, and we treated ourselves to our first massages of the trip. An hour foot massage (which included shoulders, arms, and legs) for less than $10 :-). The sunrises (yes, thanks to diving we were up before the sun came up) and sunsets here were stunning. Here's a few pictures to enjoy.
We stayed on Koh Tao so long, that we actually met up with our friend from NZ again on a third different continent! He was on holiday. After dinner that night we all went to the beach and enjoyed a Thai fire show!
Sadly, after a week of being on Koh Tao it was time to move on. We packed up our bags, took a ferry back to the mainland, and then bused 8 hours up to Bangkok. Since we didn't have free internet in our bungalow on Koh Tao, we used our time in Bangkok to catch up on the blog, research/ plan out the Philippines, and catch up on the real world. We're anxious to get to the Philippines for more beaches and diving.
No comments:
Post a Comment