Koh Tao

Hi All,

Well It's been a few days since i write about Koh Phang Nan and that seems ages ago now!

From Koh Phang Nan, I moved onto Ko Tao with two guys i met in KPN they were Adam again from England and another guy called Kurtis from Cananda. We had all pre booked our scuba course in KPN at the same place which was Crystal dive resort. We left for the Island on Thursday morning by ferry which was probably the worst journey of the trip so far, still feeling the effects of the night before, the boat was hitting every single god gamn wave in the sea and felt like i was gonna bring up my whole entire internal organs in one go. But never the less i had survived the boat trip and arrived in Ko Tao before i knew it. After collecting our bags and getting off the boat we met our guy with the crystal sign who was gong to take us to the resort, expecting another 30 min - 1 hr car ride i could feel the victor meldru inside me building up! But to my complete surprise we walked a 100m down the beach and we had reached the reception of the dive resort. Once we arrived we got all our details and medical forms done for the diving and checked into our rooms before we started our course that very Afternoon.

That afternoon we got put into our groups and introduced to our instructors who would be teaching us for the next 4 days. My group consisted of 7 guys which was crap as i was hoping for some pretty girls to be with us, anyway we got introduced to our instructors who were a English girl called Sam and an American Bloke called Scott from Texas who was built like a tank! Shortly after meeting the instructors we got stated on our course, first we had to do the theory side which as you can imagine was dull and not how i planned my afternoon, but that was OK as we got it all done and that allowed to get in the water for all of the next day.

The next day came and it was an early start for us at 8am. 8.30am and we were starting to learn how to prepare all our scuba equipment before we entered the water, after repeating the process 5 times we were done and ready to jump in the pool to learn the scuba skills that would allow us to go deep in the sea, the skills went by really quickly and was all really easy and surprised how basic it was how to learn to scuba dive. After the skill learning it was back into the classroom the final test, if we passed it we were allowed to go on the boat to dive sites. I passed with 90% so it meant i was all good to dive the next day!

Next day came and it wasnt such as early start but i was up at 9am ready to pack all my stuff and get on the boat for my first dive in the sea. It took about 30 minutes to get to the dive site and 5 minutes before we arrived we got suited up and ready so we could be first ones off the boat. we jumped in off the boat and headed to the front of the boat for our first descent underwater! before i knew it i was sinking to the bottom with the rest of my group and it was awsome! once we got to the bottom we had a few skills test to do to show we were capable of scuba diving in the sea at a depth and then after that we got to swim around the reefs which was absolutley beautiful! the colours of the reef and the fish were so vivid and the feeling you expereince whilst swimming around all these tropical fish is absolutley amazing! the best expereince ever. Anyway we had another 3 dives over two days before we finished and they all sort of followed the same pattern and it was a brilliant two days. So good infact that i decided to stay on for another 3 days and do my advanced scuba diving course!

The advanced course was without doubt the best decision i have made since deciding to go travelling. The course was allowed a lot more freedom and taught you better skills like navigation etc. so you could be more independent. We kept the same instructors for the course which was good as i'd got to know the two guys really well over the 4 days, and it made the course a lot more relaxed, also we were joined by two norwegian girls which was defintley an added bonus i must say! The course exsisited of 5 dives over 2 days. 2 dives were compulsory which was the deep dive and the navigational skills dive, but then we got to pick 3 other dives from a list, we all picked to do the night dive, the buoyancy skills dive and a naturalist dive. The three dives worth talking about were the deep dive, night and naturalist dives, but the deep dive site conditons were poor and visibilty was only 2 metres so you couldnt see anything at all which was a shame but we got to dive to 30m which was prety cool. The naturalsit dive was cool as we got to identify all the fish and coral life we saw on the dive, on that dive in particualr we saw barracudas, bat fish, nemo fish, a huge grouper and the best by far was seeing a turtle! and it doesnt stop their the turtle came out from it nest and swam right in front of my face asd was literally inches away from em as we swam together, was soo cool! The best dive i did though was the night dive, it was the most awsome expreince i have ever done and the marine life at night is just show much bigger, i saw stuff like stingrays and big schools of barracuda, my words cannot describe how amazing it is so im not gonna bother doing that!

Anyway i finished my course on the tuesday and by wednesday i was back on a train to Chiang mai which is where i am currently now, safe and sound, and still having the time of my life! so till the next blog goodbye.

'Keep it real, Ian Beale'
Tommy Gun
xxx