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So like I was saying we endured a gruelling journey from Kancahanaburi to the island of Ko Tao through various methods of transport. The trains were dated to say the least. The carriages were pretty strange places. Where you would normally have seats and tables there were a series of fold down beds, one on top of the other, with a thin curtain across. We put our bags on our beds for security reasons, leaving minimal space, and coincidentally I got very little sleep. Amy on the other hand, slept straight through.
Once we arrived in Chumphon, we had a short coach journey and a rough crossing via catamaran to Ko Tao.
Upon arrival in Ko Tao we were picked up from the pier and taken in the back of a pickup truck (the Thais love to travel like this) to the Carabao dive school. The school didnt look all that at first but had a great beachfront location and even in the overcast conditions we were experiencing it still looked like paradise with its white sandy beaches and clear waters. One of the Thai ladies from the school excplained our itinerary and informed us we had an easy first
day of watching a video and doing our homework (!). Given my tiredness I was really pleased to hear the course wouldnt properly start until the next day. After this we were shown our accomodation for the next 5 nights at the JP resort. Our room was basic but still quite nice with a balcony type bit at the front and a ceiling fan...on the ceiling. After a much needed shower and nap we headed back to the school and watched the two and a half hour video on scuba diving in the bar/restaurant. We struggled to keep our eyes open but did find out some interesting things and were thoroughly looking forward to our first dive. We met a couple of guys who would be doing the course with us (Joe from Germany and Stephan from Switzerland) and our instructor Roland (also from Germany) who seemed to be a pretty nice bloke. We returned to our room and started our homework which consisted of filling in the blanks of three pages of sentences by reading through the first three chapters of our "Open Water Diver" textbook. We struggled to come to terms with the fact we were doing homework
but after some concentration and some good old copying we got the job done. No detention for us tomorrow!
We decided to have a quiet one that night as we were pretty shattered so we went and ate at this place on the beach where you sit on cushions instead of chairs and had some great steaks. This was followed by a couple of drinks at this beach bar that was all lit up, which we later regretted because the mozzies ate us alive. The next day we woke at 8 o'clock ready for three hours of academics from 9 until 12. The studying revolved around the equipment we'd be using, the ways in which you work out how long you can stay at a certain depth without dying and the potential hazards like decompression sickness. Surprisingly the biggest risk in scuba diving is coming back to the surface too quickly because your body has too much nitrogen in it and this can cause an embolism which can kill you or give you a stroke or in a milder form some decompression sickness. For this reason, our instructor was pretty thorough about this. After an hour's lunch we were
back for our first dive.
Ko Tao is a famous diving destination with a lot of coral and sea creatures. It also has whale sharks in its waters and our instructor had seen one just a couple of weeks before so we found it pretty exciting that we could potentially come across something of that nature. Four our first dive we got a little taxi boat out to the big boat which took us to a dive site called Ao Leuk. Here we did some underwater safety exercises in shallow waters like relocating your regulator (the thing that you breathe into) if it comes out of your mouth and how to get rid of the water in your mask should it fill up by pressing on your mask and exhaling through the nose. Then we went on a bit of a dive to a depth of 6 metres (about 20 feet) and saw some cool stuff. Most notably the christmas tree coral which is really colourful and has lots of plant life on it but when you wave your hand past it they all either shrink or pop inside and hide before reappearing seconds later. I was finding it
a bit difficult to stay neutrally buoyant at the bottom and had a bit of trouble with my ears cos of the varying pressure. Luckily our instructors taught us how to control our buoyancy with our breathing which really helped us to stay in control and gain confidence.
After our full day at school we returned to our room faced with more homework (boo). We took it out with us to this fancy place with a pool that did good food. We met up with Sheila and Peter (from Dublin) whom we'd met at dive school and had a few drinks. That night we slept like babies.
After another early start and three more hours of academics we had our exam (so much for being on holiday, I hadn't worked this hard in years!). We both passed with an identical score of 96%, surpassing the pass mark of 80. In the afternoon we went our for two dives. The first was a snorkel dive which was good but once again I was having trouble with my ears. With scuba diving you have to equalize your ears for the same reason you need to suck boiled sweets on a
plane but for some reason mine werent quite popping and were causing me a bit of pain. Thank God I managed to sort it out for the next dive of 12 metres (thats about 35-40 feet Mom) unlike poor old Stephan who had to return to the boat and quit the course. Amy and I continued down the rope with our instructor and had a great dive, seeing a grumpy looking scorpion fish and a yellow tailed barracuda. That night we met up with Sheila and Peter again and went to this BBQ on the beach, followed by a trip to a reggae bar where the staff are all miniature Thai versions of Bob Marley which was quite a sight.
Our last day of the course presented us with a 7 o'clock start and two morning dives. This time at two new locations, White Rock and Twins. As we set off we got followed by this dog who really wanted to come with us and wouldnt give up. He swam after our boat for ages and was there waiting for us when we got back. Aboslute nutter. We experimented with some cool entries like jumping in backwards and the
James Bond entry when you somersault into the water. Both dives were brilliant. The first one was our deepest at about 18 metres (60 feet). We saw some of the usual characters and some clown fish (Nemo) as well as a stingray. Everyone had progressed really well and showed they were more than confident divers. We hadnt seen the famous whale sharks but we were satisfied with the cool underwater world that we had.
Now that our course had come to an end we did our first bit of sun bathing in paradise, having not had the chance up until now. At 5 we went back to the dive school to pick up our cards and log books and then watched the DVD that had been made of us all under water. It was really well made and funny so we bought one between us and copied it at the internet cafe down the road. That night we got a taxi into 'town' only to find that it was quieter than where we were staying in what we had come to realise was a very peaceful diving island. We went to a mexican place called 'El Gringo' to satisfy our cravings for fajitas and then hit the hay becuase we were absolutely shattered.
On our last full day we made sure we had our eagerly awaited lie in and went down to the beach to bum around some more. It was a scorcher. We also took the opportunity to get some laundry done and sample the pancakes that claimed to be 'The best of the best pancackes'. I'd definitely recommend banana and nutella flavour. We got packed and went back to the place with a pool for dinner. They had an open jam session going on and played some good tunes. My personal fave was their cover of 'You Cant Always Get What You Want' by the Rolling Stones, accompanied nicely by a guy on the bongos. The homemade burgers were immense and rounded off a pleasant stay in Ko Tao.
The next day we set off for our next island Ko Phangan, famed for its full moon parties. Or in our case, a half moon party. I'll keep you posted. Hope everyone is well!
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alli and the ryans
non-member comment
hello travellers
hi you two, read all of your blogs it sounds fantastic so far.pictures are fab you both look really happy and im very very jealous!!!. auntie jen uncle gra say a big hello and enjoying your blog entries. we all send our kisses and finn sends a big sloppy one to his godfather. enjoy yourselfs,look after each other. lots of love the ryans. xxxxxxxxxxxxx.