Diving and Thieving in Koh Tao

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Another day, another early morning ferry and another moment when I regret opting for the early option after only being in bed for a couple of hours. After 9 months of travelling, you would have thought I had learnt that early morning starts are a bad idea when you are getting in the same time the sun is rising. Will and I had hired some mopeds whilst in Koh Samui and we needed to return these back to the hotel reception. The previous night I had asked the guy in the bike shop next door to the hotel that we were checking out early morning and if he could put my passport behind reception. When it came to handing the keys back to reception my passport wasn’t there. Just as we were checking out, the woman who owed the hotel arrived and she assured me that she would keep my passport safe so when I came back to Samui I could come and pick it up.

The ferry from Koh Samui takes 30 minutes to get to Koh Pha-Ngan and then another 90 minutes to get to Koh Tao. Both Will and I slept for the whole of the journey sprawled across two seats each and holding out bags making sure some opportunist didn’t pick our pockets. After getting two hours of much need sleep we hopped into the back of a Toyota Hilux (makeshift taxi) which took us to Sairee beach which is on the west coast of the island.

‘Are you looking for accommodation gentleman’ asked a man from across the street as we walked down the main street in Sairee.

‘What have you got’ I asked.

‘We have bungalows for 800 baht’ he replied. ‘ They are fan rooms and not air con. Those rooms are 1,200 baht’ he added.

‘We’ll take it’ screamed Will.

The problem with travelling with people who are out for a holiday is that they don’t have any sense of barter. An art which has been lost in the west, but it tradition in somewhere like Thailand, you always have to barter, but I guess a twin room with air condition on the beach and 20 seconds from the town centre for just over £20 is cheap. Will and I dumped our bags and set about hiring some more mopeds to explore the island. We headed north up to Mango Bay. The roads in Koh Tao range from dirt track to Afghanistan minefield so getting to Mango Bay was easier said than done. After spending about an hour at Mango Bay and climbing up and down a couple hundred steps in 40+ degree heat we headed back to Sairee Beach.

The following day we booked a snorkelling trip around the island of Koh Tao. Our starting point was Mae Haad bay and headed anti clockwise around the island stopping at Chalok Baan Kao Bay, Tanole bay, Kluai-Tuen Bay and our personal favourite Mango Bay. Our trip was finished by visited a private island of the north west coast of Koh Tao, Koh Naang Yuan before heading back to Sairee Beach for late evening. The snorkelling at both Mango Bay and Kluai-Tuen Bay was fantastic. The visibility in the water was good and the aqua marine life was plentiful. It was so good that we made another trip back to Mango Bay the day after, armed with a plentiful supply of underwater cameras. We hired a long tail boat to take us from Sairee beach back to Mango Bay. We thought about hiring some mopeds again, but the sun was hot and we didn’t fancy having to climb up and down two hundred steps again. The long tail boat waited whilst we snorkelled around Mango Bay and he was even laughing at us when we decided to start diving and doing flips off the side of his boat. This was Wills last day before he was due to head home and after 3 and a half weeks travelling with him it was going to be sad to see him go, as we’ve had a great time during those 3 and a half weeks. We got back to Sairee Beach and I booked up a PADI Advanced course starting in the morning, which would keep me busy for the next two days. We headed out for dinner and then headed for the pub to watch the Spurs vs. Everton and Man Utd vs. Villa games. After a few pints of brave juice we chanting the Man Utd fans and also Liverpool were playing and some scousers were in the pub too. It was Full Moon party night in Koh Pha-Ngan so Koh Tao was relatively quiet but after a few drinks watching the football Will and I wanted to take the party on. In Thailand, when you go into a lot of the pubs/shops you have to take off your flip flops and leave them at the door. When we left the sports bar to move on, someone had stolen my flip-flops. No prizes there for which one of the thieving mancs or scousers had helped themselves to my flip-flops. They probably worked together and kept one flip flop each. So, barefoot I made my way to the only bar which looked busy on the beach, Bans. We grabbed a drink and found a place to sit. I placed my bag next to where we were sat. We got chatting to some other people from London. After an hour or so, I went to grab my wallet out of my bag, and it had gone. My bag containing my wallet, camera and four week old Blackberry had gone. At the time I was convinced that Will was playing some joke on me, and it didn’t full sink in until the morning that the bag had gone. When started to help me look for my bag along the beach, that’s when I knew that it had gone.

Will and I said our goodbyes in the morning, and luckily he left me some money so I wouldn’t have to resort to dancing in the lady boy bars. I was due to start my diving course at 10am. I quickly cancelled all my cards and my mobile phone, which was still ringing in the morning. Will got the ferry back to Samui where he was catching a connecting flight to Bangkok and then back to London. With my course starting in a few minutes I had to check out of my nicely air conditioned room and into cheaper accommodation with just a fan to keep me cool. The accommodation came free with the diving so I couldn’t complain too much. My first day diving I was scheduled to do two dives, which were peak buoyancy and under water navigation. During the underwater navigation I was attacked by a Triggerfish. Only an hour before my second dive my dive instructor told me a story about a girl who, 3 weeks early had been diving and was attacked by a Triggerfish. She needed plastic surgery on her forehead. During the dive I was trying to find a point underwater using my compass and I felt this tug on my fin. I turned around to see my diving instruction making a gun action with his hand. I thought to myself, what the devil could he mean. It then dawned me on what he meant. Triggerfish. As I turned back around I could see two of them about 8 metres in front on me. I noticed that the fish were bigger than he mentioned and also the teeth on them looked huge and I didn’t fancy finding out how sharp they felt. When you learn to dive you are taught that if some aggressive comes up to you stay still, however in reality if something like a Triggerfish comes to attack you, you only have one option. The best option is to lie on your back and to fin them away. One of the fish came for me. I started fining as hard as I could and this fish seemed not to be afraid and only stopped when it got about 1cm away from my fin. It started to swim back and then it turned and went for me again. I did the same thing and it was only when it got close enough to take a chunk out of my fin it stopped. The other one then decided to go for my dive instructor, who at this point saw what was happening and started to do the same as I did. The one going for him was more aggressive and wouldn’t give it up. That fish chased us for just over 50 metres until were well out of their way. The reason it came for me in the first place was because I had swam into their nest. They are fiercely protective of their space and their young. We both made it back to the boat and for the first time I could feel myself actually sweating in the water.

The next day I had three more dives. The first was going to be a deep dive, around about 30 metres, again, there would be a chance of seeing Triggerfish. About 10 minutes into the dive we saw some Triggerfish, but this time, we saw them before they saw us and we swam the other way. The last dive of the day, and probably the one I was looking forward to the most was the night dive. As it was still a full moon it was going to be a bit lighter than normal. We were going to be exploring the Sairee reef so wouldn’t go any deeper than 7metres. I hadn’t done a night dive before and armed with a torch to help me find my way I headed into the unknown. Diving at night seemed to be a lot easier and because a lot of the fish are resting then you can get up close to them, almost touch them in some cases.

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