Apologies for not updating for a few days. It's been all go on the scuba front and I'm sure you're all waiting on tenderhooks to hear how it all went! Normal service will now be resumed.
It has been a great few days on Koh Tao. The first night I arrived, after checking into my room I headed to the bar to sample bit of the Crystal Dive nightscene. One of the dive instructors invited me over to join them when he realised I was on my tod, which was really nice. Met a couple of really nice Aussie girls (Sophie and Dee) and their friend Will and after a few beers we headed off to the nearest restaurant to grab a bite to eat. They were doing their Open Water as well but were two days ahead of me. Dee was doing her Rescue qualification as she was already qualified to Advanced level.
The following morning I met the rest of my group (one Brit, two Yanks, two Swiss, all girls except Chris one of the Swiss pair) and my instructor, Nick. Thought Nick was Canadian at first but turns out he is also Swiss but grew up in Africa and went to many American international schools, hence the accent. We had two half days in the classroom, an afternoon in the pool learning our skills, and then two half days diving to complete the course.
Apart from having to flood and empty your mask underwater (I hate that part) all went well in the run up to our first proper dives. I hadn't anticipated the whole having to learn so much and actually pass an exam when I decided to do this, it's a while since I've had to study and pass something but it was all fairly easy. I even mastered the dive planning despite my shady grasp of mathematics!
I have to say that the first dive was a positively surreal experience. Getting used to the lack of peripheral vision in a mask and the constant awareness of your breathing is most bizarre. But once we got into it I really enjoyed it. Lots of fish to look at though the whole 40 minutes went so quickly that it felt like we didn't get much of a chance to take it all in.
The second dive, following an hour back on the boat, was at the same site as the visibility was so good. I struggled a bit more on this one as we had to master some of the skills we learnt in the pool and my ears were giving me grief, unable to equalize all the time, and started hurting quite a lot. A few of us had the same problem.
I was a bit more nervous about the second two dives as a result but was determined to enjoy it. Nick took us to a deep dive site to show us how different an experience it is. Really glad we did as it was amazing, huge schools of fish everywhere you looked, a massive pinnacle in the middle to swim round just covered in anemones, coral and too many creatures to mention. We'd all got the hang of our buoyancy more and saw a massive improvement in our abilities. I struggled to stay with my buddy, Jazz, a bit as she always seemed to be a few metres above, unable to bring herself lower down with her breathing and weights that she was carrying. But we got the hang of it by the final dive.
I'm so glad I did the course, especially as I've been so shit scared of everything that lurks in the deep, dark sea ever since watching Jaws as a kid (let's face it who hasn't!). But I think I've got over that a lot more now. It was tempting to stay on and do the advanced course but decided that money and time didn't really allow. There are plenty of other places on my trip that I can revisit my newfound skills anyway.
The diving world isn't a half bad life really. It's a very macho environment (may I just say that there are some very fit men on the island!) on the boat and the whole post-dive culture but it's also very very laidback and chilled. So many of the divemasters out here came to do the Open Water and have just kept going and never left (or at least gone home to earn some money and come back again).
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