Island Hopping in the Gulf of Thailand

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Hat Karon did get a bit boring as there was noone around, so caught a local bus back to the Phuket Town. Had a bloke on a moped offer to take me and Andrew on the back of his moped, each with our backpacks (about the size of us)!! Made us laugh a lot, but he was deadly serious and kept reducing his price until we tried to show how the physics of it just really wouldnt work! From Phuket Town caught a coach to Surat Thani on the east coast and then on to Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand by fairly slow (but, thankfully calm) ferry. As it is on the other side of the country, the monsoon which caused the 'low' season in Phuket (of apparently brilliant sunshine in our case) does not exist. But it really wasnt that busy at all in Hat Mae Nam on the north coast of the island either, finding an air-con ensuite hut overlooking the beach for a bargain price. Here, spent a few days on the beach relaxing , sunbathing and topping up the tan. Was all very nice.

After Koh Samui, caught a high-speed catamaran that skimmed across the Gulf for 1.5 hours to Koh Tao, the undisputed diving capital of Thailand (some argue the world). Koh = island, Tao = turtle. After tackling past all the touts at the pier, started walking to where we thought we wanted to stay, but gave up and caught one of the touts as he drove past. He took us to Sairee Village (about 3km away from the pier) and the Silver Sands resort. Attached to the resort (as is the case with most guesthouses) was Davy Jones Locker - our dive school. Not that we knew at the time, but the dive school had only been open for a few months (which equals pretty much brand spanking new equipment). They had not even got their own boat yet, so piggy-backed on all the other diver operators' boats, basically meaning that if they fancied diving somewhere, they called all the other dive companies (of which there are nearly 50 on this tiny island) to find out who was going there. All in all this was very good for us, and just to make it even better, the accomodation (which was pretty cheap anyway for ensuite room) was totally free on the days you do dives. And, got reduced rates on fun dives as we signed up for a course. Gotta love a little competition. Got issued with a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver book and told to pick a few of the adventure dives I liked the sound of. You have to do a deep water dive (classified as 30m down) and a rather boring navigation dive. Other ones I picked were the night dive (which sounded like an amazing idea at the time), a underwater naturalist dive (thats naturalist, not naturist, so clothes are required) and also a peak performance bouyancy dive (where you learn how to hover and swim around like a fish). Oddly enough, that evening watched "The Beach" in the pub and saw how Hollywood had depicted Koh Phi Phi so shortly after visiting there. Film really not as good as the book though.

Next day was Andrew's birthday (the whole reason we ended up in Koh Tao at this time). To celebrate, he wanted to go on a few fun dives, so after some brunch met our divemaster for the fun dives, Sandra, who would also be supervising our Advanced Open Water stuff. Anyways, bobbed along to the dive site, which was Red Rock and jumped in, and rather handily remembered how to dive. Went along underwater to the Japanese Gardens before exiting and along the way saw some amazingly varied and colourful coral, anemonies and some scary triggerfish that attack your fins if you get too close. This is because they are currently in breeding season and are one of the few fish who actually nurture their young in a nest. Was all very fun and great to be back underwater, although its only been 2 weeks! Next dive, after a short break, was just around the corner at Twins. Here spent around 45 minutes underwater, with butterflyfish, angelfish, bannerfish, tirggerfish, squirrelfish and even some little cleaner wrasse (cheeky little things that have a go at cleaning the wax out of your ears) headbutting my head - not the sort of thing you expect while cruising along the bottom of the ocean! These fellas have bigger brothers that can actually burst ear drums! Even went through a small cave - good buoyancy practice not to hit the bottom, top or sides. After dives, went for a celebration dinner and then to the pub. I enjoyed Andrew's birthday, I think he did too!

Next day, spent wandering around the small selection of shops, got a few souvenirs and also some tshirts (not sure I need any more, but they were cheap!). Then spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on the beach and then reading up on the 3 different dives happening the next day - deep dive, underwater naturalist and night dive.

So, had to get up stupidly early the next day and was packing up dive bag at like 7am! Boat chugged out to Chumporn Pinnacle, around 45 mins out in the middle of the ocean it seemed. Jumped in to amazing visability - could almost see to the bottom - around 20m. Could also see that lots and lots (i mean like 50) of other divers were down there. Really odd sight seeing so many people floating around at various depths underwater. Got down to about 20m holding a line, then had to go off a ledge and drop another 10m. Scariest thing about being 30m down with that sort of clear water is that it really does not feel at all like you are that far underwater. Then did a nitrogen narcosis test underwater to check to see how much influence the depth has on the functioning of your body due to the amount of nitrogen that is in you that cant escape under that depth or pressure. Therefore, a small number-finding test on a sheet took 25 seconds on land, and 40 seconds underwater. Tis rather funny how the nitrogen influences you (oh, and its totally harmless as it all seeps out of you again when you go a bit higher) and can even make you act insanely 'drunk' and irrational. After that, was time to explore the depths. You use air much faster at depth due to the pressure, so didnt have too long down there. While swimming along, to our amazement a 1.7m grey reef shark, yes, SHARK, cruised past within 10m of us, followed by a little gang of tag-along fishes. Bobbed there in awe as he went past, disappeared around a rock, turned and came back for a closer look. He went past, even closer this time, at about 6m and also a lot slower, checking us all out as we were starring at its amazing beauty and gracefulness. Then he disappeared out of sight, obviously thinking we were cool enough to hang around his area. Was totally amazing *still wishes he had an underwater camera*. After that, all the other fish we saw really didnt seem that impressive, but they should have been, but the bat fish who swim around on their side looking a bit drunk are quite funny. Got to swim through a few caves as well, which were really exciting. Deeper water reveals a lot more interesting creatures that the snorkellers havent got their feet on and broken.

Next dive was Underwater Naturalist, so, armed with picture cards of loads of fish, coral and other underwater things, went downstairs for over 45 minutes and spotted as many things as possible and then when back on the surface went through piles of books to show our instructor what we had seen. Was a really fun dive, and there was so much life down there.

After a break of about 5 hours on land, had to pack up again to go on the night dive. Headed out on insanely choppy water in a boat actually shaped like a banana that really made me feel extremely sea sick, especially as you couldnt really see much as it was dark! With a boat rocking at least 4m up and down from bow to stern and a thunder and lightning storm kicking off, was quite a relief to jump in. However, the visibility was absolutely nothing, and got to a dizzy depth of around 8m! After failing the navigation exercise quite spectacularly and needing to surface to find where we were, descended again to have a look around. Saw absolutely nothing but rocks, the seabed and a few sea urchins that had insanely long spines. The best thing to be seen down there was the lightning storm above, which lit up the water around. Shame really as was really looking forward to the dive and what it would be like swimming round with only a torch to see things with. May be a better experience in clearer, calmer waters elsewhere.

Next day were afternoon dives, so got a chance to read up about Peak Performance Buoyancy and the Navigation dives coming up. Descended at Twins not very far from the coast to about 12m and had amazing visibility. After descending, had to practice hovering about a meter off the bottom for around 5 minutes, which was easy enough, then came the tricky bits. The other 2 made a human arch (as we didnt have a hoop) and then had to do various tricks going through it, without you or your equipment touching the sides or the deck. This included swimming through normal way up, upsidedown, doing figures of 8 round the archway, barrelrolls and the one which i totally sucked at, summersauts. Sounds easy enough, but kept kicking upwards as coming out the other end of the archway, so ascended, corrected and ended up smacking the deck (onl sand) back-first. Was soooo funny, and we were all laughing at each other, suckin up air and causing our masks to flood up with water (as your face shape changes). 53 minutes flew past and really didnt feel like it was a test in any way as was having such a laugh.

Next dive was to White Rock and was the Navigation dive, the final one for the Advanced Open Water Course. Had to descend with a dive computer without our instructor and had just Andrew navigating via compass while I used the computer to keep us at a constant depth of 7m. First challenge was to go along a course from the diveline for 50 kicks, turn and get back to the diveline. That one was easy enough. Next challenge, complete a square using the compass. Bad move by starting off the wrong direction and then got totally lost at the 3rd trun and had to ascend to find the boat. But sadly ran out of time to complete the test properly, but we passed anyway, and just have to remember not to let Andrew navigate... Celebrated passing the course with our instructor and a few of the others from Davy Jones's Locker at the bar on the beachfront. All very chilled.

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Comments

[Colin]

!
One picture!! Disgraceful!!!

[Rexxor]

No Pics
Didnt have an underwater camera!