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Black tip reef shark
Yep, it's a serious looking shark! Yep - we did it! At about 90 feet under we swam with (okay, watched) 6-foot long reef sharks. Very cool! It was our second "deep" dive of our advanced open water scuba course. To back up and give you the context:
We arrived on Koh Tao (Turtle Island) on Thursday after two days on Koh Samui. Samui was fun although the beach at our hotel was a bit of a let down. It was very susceptible to tides so at low tide it was way out and filled with coral. We both cut ourselves when we tried to venture in. Our second day on Samui though included a several hour trip on a restored Chinese Junk boat which was just beautiful and we stopped in a island bay for some swimming - quite fun.
But back to the original story...arrived at Koh Tao on Thursday and began the Open Water certification with 7 other first time scuba divers (4 irish, 2 brit, 1 israeli). Thursday was just watching a video and reading a book but then Friday we took to the pool to learn how to use the equipment and get a hang for breathing underwater. Thankfully we really liked it - and it allayed many of our fears for the next day when we did the real thing in open water.
Our first dive in open water was a bit rough. Getting the hang of the breathing, ear clearing and buoyancy was not super easy. But it was very cool. One more dive and we were feeling a bit better. The next day we did two more open water dives down to 60 feet below. We both felt a lot more comfortable and actually enjoyed the dives. We saw "Nemo" too...a little clownfish hanging out by its nest. Once we passed the written exam (felt like we were back in school again) we became officially certified as open water divers (basically means we're allowed to go down to 60 feet on our own).
But we enjoyed the diving, our fellow classmates and instructors (Steve - Dutch & Wade - American) so much that we figured we should go for the advanced certification - 5 more dives over 2 days. We want to be bad a**! Plus it was cloudy so it wasn't like we could just lounge on the beach.
The first day of advanced diving included 3 dives: deep (down to 95-100ft), navigational (mike & me on our own with a compass), and night (self-explanatory). I was pretty freaked out about the deep dive but it ended up being really cool. Once you're down it's pretty hard to tell the difference between 60ft and 95ft. Some people get nitrogen narcosis at that level (like feeling drunk) so our instructor had us do a little math test underwater which mike and i both passed. The navigational dive wasn't quite as fun - being on the dive site without following an instructor was nerve wracking, not to mention trying to communicate to each other underwater, but we did it (with just a bit of a swim back to the boat). Then a dinner break and back out onto the boat. We jumped back in the water with big flashlights and away we went. Very peaceful, saw some fish and a few stingrays. Needless to say we slept well that night.
Last day of class was a multi-level dive (10min at 90ft and then 25min at 50ft) and then a fish dive (basically just us on our own checking out the coral and fish). The first dive we went to 90ft with our instructor on the lookout for sharks and quickly came across 3 sharks swimming in a circle. It was pretty surreal watching them. Then we swam on our own at 50 ft for most of the rest of the dive. Thankfully Mike was on top of things as I got so caught up looking at fish and coral that I hadn't realized I'd gotten low on air...he's a good buddy 😊 The next dive was relatively shallow - between 25-50ft but with beautiful fish - angelfish, and coral to check out. We were much more comfortable on our own this time and Mike saved the day in navigating at the end so we came up right by the boat. A great day!
But so much diving left us a bit starved for beach so now we're back on Samui from the 5th through the 8th for some serious relaxation and beach. We're at a different hotel where the beach is absolutely gorgeous: white sand, no tide, no coral. Life is good.
We have also been on top of the World Cup. Last night that entailed catching a couple hours of sleep prior to waking up at 2:00am to watch the France v. Portugal game. While we were hoping to see a Germany v. France final, it is great to at least see France make it and also importantly for Zidane to be in such good form. His penalty kick against Portugal was pretty awesome! Go France in the Final!
Next stop, Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand...
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