Koh Tao gulf of Thailand

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Little turtle island is awesome. Loved it. Like all other visitors i arrived on this island for the sole purpose of scuba. Lured here by the ever powerful and influential guide books selling the island as the mecca of scuba divers i booked a 5 day Padi course & totally enjoyed it loved it, met some great people and was really bowled over at how amazing the environment is down there. There was alittle bit of fear and apprehension with the thought of your life being in the hands of a tiny steel tank strapped to your back & adapting to breathing through a regulator at deep depths but like anything involving fear the rewards afterwards and the adrenaline are well worth it.

We were extremely lucky on our course, we had perfect conditions of 30m + visibility and frequent visits from turtles, clown fish, barcudas and even a couple of huuuge 18ft Whale sharks, sharks of the vegetarian variety, meaning no sharp teeth and appetite for human blood.

To put it into context our instructors had done around 400 - 600 dives in their lives and this was also the first time they were seeing a whale sharkl!! there are that rare!!. What a strange weird and wonderful experience it was for us to be floating steadily at around 15m depth & for us to then witness such a magnificent huge creature come gliding out of the deep blue void towards us silhouetted (and looking rather like a great white) & then to hit the light and reveal itself to us & show all the intricate patterns on its skin, and have its little inky beady eyes make contact with yours!!, surreal moments, i remember trying to take it all in as much as possible with wide open glaring eyes telling myself this was a once in a lifetime moment. I incurred the wrath of my instructor by swimming off from my buddy after it determined to get a picture with it, something that is very dangerous & forbidden in the diving world but all i could think of was how many times am i going to get this opportunity?

I really loved Ko Tao, after the diving we all had a party next to the beach at the bar and all the dive talk about who had seen what over cocktails and beers made it a great time for me, much better than the full moon party.

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