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Published: October 4th 2014
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The taxi collected us for our final two dives at 0830 and this time we were joined by an Austrian family of four, two of whom would be diving and two Americans that were doing an open water course.
Green Rock was the first site and we were lucky that Marco spotted a moray eel hiding under a rock - it hid away as I tried to capture it on the GoPro. We were surrounded by clownfish, angelfish and many others that I’d never seen before. There was even a swim through that was very tight indeed but we both made it through.
Dive 5 - Green Rock
Max Depth 19.5 metres
Dive Time 40 minutes
Water Temp 31c
Our surface time was at Lighthouse, a site on the north east coast of Koh Tao that was exceptionally busy with a large boat of Chinese tourists wearing lifejackets and snorkelling in an area netted off by the shoreline.
Dive 6 - Lighthouse
Max Depth 10.7 metres
Dive Time 57 minutes
Water Temp 31c
We can’t have been more than 20 metres from the coast of Koh Tao when we descended. We never
got any deeper than 10.7 metres and managed 57 minutes under the surface making for a great dive. Unfortunately the turtle that had apparently been spotted earlier was nowhere to be seen but the whole site felt like we were diving in an aquarium.
I was a little teary eyed as we hit the surface as everything we were going to be doing from that point involved heading back home. The taxi collected us from the pier at midday and by 1300 we were checking out of Pinnacle. Jo arranged a hotel on Koh Samui for the night and we rode our motorbikes over the dirt road for the final time. I wasn’t in too much of a rush to get to the ferry and enjoyed the ride back, still noticing new shops and places that I must have ridden past a dozen times in the previous few days but missed. We would have to come back.
Jo dropped her bike off first and I two-upped her to the ferry terminal, returning to RPM to leave my bike there and collect our backpack. We had a quick lunch at Surface Stop, a bar and restaurant right on the
pier and boarded the ferry at 1500.
We arrived on Koh Samui around 1700 and had quite the ordeal trying to get a taxi to our accommodation. It was a good 40 minutes away and we ended up paying THB800 (NZD32) for the trip - more than it had cost for both of us to get the ferry from Koh Tao! The island was significantly larger and more built up than Koh. A 40 minute drive on Koh Tao would be multiple circumnavigations! For some reason Koh Samui is more popular with tourists than Koh Tao but during the taxi ride south I couldn’t find a reason why.
Jo had done exceptionally well with the hotel booking and we managed to get a bungalow right on the beach. We couldn’t see much of it as darkness had descended but it looked promising for the morning. We had our own private pool that would have been fantastic except that it started pelting down with the wind sending the raindrops in at us vertically. I’m not a fan of getting wet when swimming. We cut our losses and Jo had dinner at the hotel restaurant. I wanted to eat but
the kitchen staff forgot to cook my seafood pizza. I ended up having it delivered to our room.
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