Diving in Koh Tao

First off, I am two weeks behind. Sorry to all the readers who were expecting daily updates!

I made (yet another) overnight journey down south to an island called Koh Tao. This place is supposed to be really good for diving. I was thinking that I might take my "Advanced Open Water Diver Course". Koh Tao is sort of the Diving instruction mecca for South East Asia.

I got on the boat, and proceeded to listen to the hard sell from about 1000 guys who each claimed that their school / resort was the best. They all had impressive sounding, but similar spiels, so I just randomly decided on one. It's not like diving requires specialzied equipment and knowledge. If it did, I should have probably researched the best place to go before I got there, right? :)

Well, I didn't research anything. I did take a course. The equipment was pretty darn dodgey, but I went down to depth (90 feet), and managed to come back up without exploding a lung or anything. I am now an certified "advanced diver".

The diving was actually quite good. I am always excited to dive in warm waters with good visibility - I did my original certification in Monterey in waters that somehow defied the laws of thermodynamics by staying at least a hundred degrees below freezing, with visibility of a whole three fingers.

Some of the guys here were disappointed when the "vis" got down to 7m (21 feet). I just smiled, remembered when I did my first dive, and couldn't see my hand in front of my face.

Amazingly enough, I didn't see any of the fabled "Whale Sharks" that the sales guy on the boat promissed. In fact, pretty much everything that the guy told me was exaggerated, inaccurate, or just plain wrong. But such is life. I had a good time anyway...

I also met loads of great people on the island. I really liked the overall experience. I liked the experience so much that I definitely would have stayed had I not already promissed the gals (Meyung and Nat) from Bangkok that I would meet them in Phuket.

Oh - I did have another drunken conversation with some really cool Swiss folks in which I defended Pax Americana. I actually switch sides on this fairly often, depending on my mood and company. I took the extreme Devil's Advocate view here, and we argued (then drank, then danced, then argued more) until 5:30 AM. Life was great!

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