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Published: March 27th 2008
Blue water, lots of coral
This is why we came to Ko TaoThe rickety jetty from where the bus dropped us to the ferry stretched about 100m out into the sea. As we walked along the wooden planks we could see why. The whole way out, the sea below us was no more than a meter deep, and clear enough to see the fishes swimming about. The sun was just rising above the bulk of an offshore island, but we were already sweating as we shoved our backpacks down into the cabin of the ferry.
After about 90 mins at sea we arrived at the small island of Ko Tao. With only a few days of leave, we had come to accept that we were not going to be able to see much of the country, and so instead we picked a place where we'd be happy to just relax for a few days. Ko Tao is the perfect place to relax for people like us who can't sit still.
The island is one of those postcard "paradise" islands. A palm-lined white beach separated our bamboo bungalow from a wave-less turquoise sea. You can walk far out into the sea before it starts to get deeper than waist-deep. The water is
The Jetty
Out to the waiting catamaran ferry so warm and clear that one day I sat for over an hour watching colourful little striped fish swim around me. But the thing that makes Ko Tao unique is that it has gone Scuba-nuts. Almost everyone on the island is there to dive over the coral reefs that ring the little island. The diving is supposedly the best in Thailand, which puts it near high on the list of divers from all over the world. Life on the island is divided into 3 groups: First there is a smorgasbord of tourists from the 6 continents who have all come to see Thailand's submarine beauty. Then there is an equally diverse array of 20-somethings who have completed the PASI instructors course and are spend their mornings guiding dives or teaching courses, and their afternoons buzzing around town on scooters. Finally are the Thai locals, although very few are native to Ko Tao. They are the small time entrepreneurs that you find anywhere in Asia where tourists congregate. They advertise fresh coconuts, camera film, foot massages and an cheap scooter rental, but have the resources to organise anything that you could possibly need, for a price.
We, of course, fell
into the first group. We'd made a peace with the fact that we were not going to learn a new culture here. We had come for the diving. We chose one of the smaller dive school to do PADI Advanced Open Water course, which turned out to be a good call. They gave us very good personal service and thanks to a highly competitive dive business, we got a good price on our course, with accommodation and 2 extra dives included free!
The theory side of the course was mostly a case of reading the manual on the beach or the balcony of our stilted bungalow. But we were ain the water right from the beginning. We arrived by ferry on the island at 11am, dropped our bags, grabbed some food, and joined the boat leaving for two afternoon dives at 1pm.
The diving certainly did not disappoint. The visibility was good and the water an incredible 28 degrees celcius, but the thing that we noticed first was the sheer amount of fish life on the reefs. Hundreds of little colourful fish were hanging close to the rock walls and the rock was completely covered in very healthy
coral. While we were diving massive schools of silver and yellow fusiliers would swim pasts, moving like a single body. It was fantastic to be under the water in such a rich, colourful place.
Our course included some very interesting speciality dives. On the first day we did our navigation dives, where Catherine and I were each equipped with a compass and dive computer and given the chance to lead a dive. Having only ever been diving with dive masters who know the reef, I had never noticed how tricky it is to swim around under water for an hour, where there are currents and you can only see a 10-15 metres and come back to where you started off. It was even more trick since we'd never been to the dive sites before.
Catherine went first, exploring a reef near the coast called Mango Bay. She brought us back to the boat's anchor line several times during the dive, and seemed genuinely surprised when we ended up in the right place after our time was up. The dive I led was on a site called twins. Our instructor gave me a hand-sketched map to follow, with an
arrow pointing around where north might be. Once we were under the water she told me (with hand signals) she thought that she had drawn the map upside down. Either way up, the map did not match the compass bearings, but we managed to find all the underwater sights, including two big rocky reefs and a family of breeding anenome fish that had attracted every dive school on the island. It was another beautiful dive, but I could not find the boat's anchor line at the end, and we had to swim a few metres when we surfaced to take a look.
We did a deep dive (32m) on a site called Chumphon Pinnacle. A massive rock sticks out of the sea floor, which is absolutely covered with sea life. School of all kind of tropical fish hang around the big rock and every free spot is covered with coral and anenomes. It is definately one of the most incredible sites that I have dived. We found the big attraction of this site when we dropped to the base of the rock, where we waited on the sand at 30 metres below. In the dim light Grey Reef Shark
Unda da sea
Scuba buddies would emerge from the blue and pass silently by, then turn and disappear again. We saw 7 of them in total. They are not as big as the Raggies we saw in South Africa, but there is something about sharks that just makes them look different to the other "Happy-to-be-your-friend fish". It really is awesome to be observing them in their world.
The most unique of our dives was our final one. Instead of leaving early in the morning a usual, this time we headed out on the boat just as the sun was setting. It was just myself, Catherine and our instructor Paul on the big dive boat. We sat around drinking tea and being briefed while waiting, and then as the sun dropped below the horizon we dropped below the surface.
Doing a night dive is a very different experience to normal Scuba diving. You can obviously only see where you point your torch, although in those clear waters there was still a bit of light form the moon. The fish that you see at night are quite different, and many of the coral change at night, unfurling long feather-like strictures that start to curl up
again when your light hits them. We saw big barracuda, a blue-spotted ray, and Paul took us to look into a cave where a huge sea turtle was sleeping.
At one point we found a sandy patch to kneel down and turned off our lights. When we waved around our hands in the water phosphorescent bacteria in the lit up. It was like stirring your up a galaxy of stars with your hands. Really fantastic.
Money goes a long way in Thailand, the food is great, the beaches and diving are exquisite and the weather is fantastic. Oh yes, and the Thai food is brilliant. It is easy to see why so may people have dropped their previous career to live the island life and teach diving. It is one of those whirlpools where you can get caught for months or years. For the two of us it was just more fascinating stop along the river of our travels.
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Susan
non-member comment
So pretty
This all looks so amazing - I have just added this to my already incredibly long "to do" list! What a wonderful experience for you both.