July 11-13 – Koh Tao, Thankful to be alive

After our brief stay in Samui, we took a ferry to Koh Tao (Turtle Island) which is a much much smaller island.

It is one of the prettiest islands in the archipelago and is a great place to do diving. So that’s what I decided I would try.

Jeremy in Japan recommended we try the Big Blue Dive Resort. So we checked it out. They picked us up at the ferry. As you can see there was a little bit of miscommunication, but I think this was for us.

We hopped into one of those pickup truck things with seats in the back (called a songthaew or something like that) and headed to the resort. A dive master greeted us and asked us what we were there to do. Originally, I was just going to try a 1-day “Discover Scuba” class. But once I got talking to the dive guy, I thought I would go ahead and get a certification with a 2 day course. I signed up and they showed us to our room and my classes were to start that evening.

Our room – oh boy. At $6/night, perhaps we shouldn’t expect much. But this is easily one of the worst places we have stayed.

There were lots of problems. It was quite small and pretty dirty looking. Really these places would look so much nicer with just a quick coat of paint. Anyways, that wasn’t the only problem. Our room was located next to some sort of sewer hole out the back. So pretty much, our room had this funky sewer smell that didn’t ever quite go away. The bathroom was also very basic and a bit gross. It was another shower/toilet combination. Let me just say that Jen was a real trooper for putting up with this. I thought it was kind of cool and bohemian to start, but by the end of the 3 nights I was so happy to leave.

One other problem was it was extremely noisy at night. Luckily it died down some after midnight but there was techno music all night, dogs barking constantly, loud neighbors. It was a mess.

So after some book study the first night, I was well on my way to getting my SCUBA PADI certification. After reading some it sounded a bit scary as there are many ways you can hurt yourself. If you sink too quickly your eardrums can get messed up from the pressure changes. Worse though, if you ascend too quickly your lungs blow up like balloons. Although they don’t quite explode, you can get severe lung over-expansion injuries that could mess you up pretty bad. And also there is just the whole freaking out/drowning possibility. Problems are a little harder to deal with 30 m underwater.

Our first session in the water turned out really well. We started in shallow water and practiced techniques such as losing your breathing regulator or getting the water out of your mask if it fills up. Here’s a picture of my main instructor the night before one of our dives. Would you trust this guy with your life?

He was from Denmark and actually did a really great job. Thanks Hal for helping me survive.

We (me and a young Dutch couple, Duuk and Bing) did our initial drills so well that we had a lot of extra time and we went on a “fun” dive. This is when things got a little scary. I didn’t feel I quite had a grasp of everything yet, but there we went. I think it might have been a little too much too soon.

Anways, the biggest problem was when we first started descending, my mask completely filled with water. Although we just practiced that, I had only done it once. It’s a lot harder when you have fragile coral below you and you can’t see very well in the salty water. It got me a little freaked out and I was having some difficultly clearing my mask. But I eventually worked it out and calmed down. We continued on, but I didn’t feel like I had very good control of becoming neutrally buoyant. This is when you sort of become weightless in the water and don’t really go up or down. When we got done I was a bit happy to be done with it for the day.

That night I was nervous about the next day and a little unsure if I liked doing it or not. But the next morning we set off really early for another dive. I told my instructor I was nervous and I think they kept a little closer eye on me. There was also another instructor who was my buddy that made sure I was doing alright.

I was nervous at first, but we descended the second time in a more controlled manner on a line. We went a bit deeper I believe, but I had much better control this time and no mask problems. This time I really enjoyed myself down there and was starting to get the hang of things.

The ocean is amazing. We were continually surrounded by fish and all kinds of creatures. I saw anglefish, barracuda, jellyfish, moray eels, and a cute clownfish family (Nemo!). There was dozens of other types of fish.

We did a second dive later that afternoon and we practiced more techniques. I was really starting to like diving. I am now officially certified SCUBA. Here's my temp card:

So I’m quite grateful that I didn’t drown and got to do such a scary thing and got so much better at it. I would definitely do this again sometime.

While I was doing all this, Jen just stayed at the resort (got out of the room!) and relaxed on same chairs near the beach.

Again thanks to Jen for letting me have some fun for a couple days. There wasn't much else we did here other than eat and enjoy some stunning scenery.