Koh Tao, Oh How I Miss You!

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So, I have left Koh Tao and am now in Krabi, which is on the southeastern part of Thailand, on the Andaman Coast. I am taking a tour to the famous Koh Phi Phi Islands, which are absolutely gorgeous (go google it to see pictures), tomorrow. I am feeling a bit crabby in Krabi for three reasons: 1. I really miss Koh Tao, 2. It is raining (and it better not rain tomorrow!) and 3. I just realized that I somehow lost my only jacket on the minibus today, which is really stupid, because it was RIGHT WITH ME. Argh! By the way, this entry is not gonna be my best, because at the hostel where I am, they are playing this really loud sitcom, and it is quite distracting (although not in a good way, it isn't funny at all).
So, when I originally decided to go back to Koh Tao to do more scuba diving, I was a little worried that it wouldn't be the same experience as it was when I went in February. And I was right. It was BETTER! I had a WONDERFUL time! Because of the recent flooding at the end of March, there were less people who were at Scuba Junction, so I got to know much better the instructors as well as the divemaster students. And they are really awesome people. You would have to be to be that dedicated to diving. For those of you who don't know much about scuba diving, divemaster students take the divemaster course, which is about six weeks long and gives you all these lessons about all kinds of diving, of course, and at the end of the course, you can take people on fun dives and tune-up dives. In order to teach the actual courses, you have to go to an instructor course. But, basically, if you really want to get into diving, you take the divemaster course. Maybe I will do it one day, who knows? But, it was a really great opportunity to be able to get to know these awesome individuals and learn more about how they live, if that makes any sense.
So, back to my own experience diving this time in Koh Tao. I started off by taking the advanced diving course, which entails five dives over two days - you have to do a deep dive (up to 30 meters, or about 100 feet) as well as a navigation dive, and then you get to choose three other types of dives. I chose to do a buoyancy dive (where you improve your buoyancy under water by working on your breathing so that you can maintain better control of where you are going), a night dive (obviously, a dive when it is nighttime!) and a naturalist, or fish identification, dive (where you get to learn better about the kinds of flora and fauna under the water). I had Gaz as my instructor - this really sarcastic but great British guy. Hehe, I told him that he looks really grumpy underwater because he tends to have his arms crossed while he is diving. I also got the added bonus of a divemaster in training, Britta, the sweetest Swedish girl in the world. So, I had two instructors all to myself! Pretty nice, huh? Anyways, I am gonna tell you a bit more about what my scuba diving experiences have been like so that you can have some kind of idea.
My first dive was perfect buoyancy. For that, you have to do a lot of breathing in order to move your body up and down. So, if you want to go up, you breathe in very deeply, and if you want to go down, you breathe out deeply. This is important so that you don't crash into corals, which would definitely be devastating. I practiced going up, pausing, and then going down, and then going in a circle while looking at a stationary object, as well as standing upside down (well, floating upside down). I also practiced going through a loop to practice in case I would have to go through swim-throughs (which I actually went through two days later!). I am glad I practiced this because it is quite an important skill to have! After that dive, we went on the navigation dive, where I had to use my compass to go north and then south, and then make a square (NESW). Then, I practiced my natural navigation, where I used a map as a guide, and then had to lead the group to a certain place. And my task was to FIND NEMO! See, there are these two anemone fish - not the exact same fish as the Nemo in the movie but very similar looking - and they live in this anemone, which is not doing so well. Apparently, they won't abandon the anemone until it is dead. So, in order to help, the divers have protected the anemone with a ring of stones to mark the area so that people don't cross it. And you go to this area, and the two Nemos are just chilling out at their house. They are quite good looking fish, even if there anemone isn't. Anyway, I had to go find where Nemo is located, and I was successful! So, I FOUND NEMO! 😊
That evening, we went on a night dive. Hmm, I wish I could say that it was AWESOME, but it was kind of scary. Because the visibility wasn't very good - probably because of the recent storm - and all the fish seemed to be hiding. As in, the nocturnal fish. They just weren't around much. Although I could see some fish hiding in the coral, and I saw some crabs and a ray. But, it was a bit scary, because you couldn't really see much outside of where your flashlight was. Although at one point we put all our flashlights (or torches, as they like to say) on our chests to turn them off (you don't actually turn them off because if they couldn't turn back on then you would be screwed) and then moved our hands around so that we could see all the bioluminescents (sp?) flashing under the water. The best way for me to compare it would be to when you light a sparkler and can spell words with it. So, the next day, we went on the deep dive and the fish identification dive. The deep dive was pretty cool. We went down to about 27 meters, and when you get that far down, you have to do the nitrogen narcosis test. When you pass a certain depth underwater, sometimes the nitrogen can build up to be too much, resulting in nitrogen narcosis, which is like a silly giddiness like being drunk. So, you do a nitrogen narcosis test to make sure that you don't have it, because if you do, you don't make very good decisions. The test is, they show you numbers with their fingers, and if it is an even number, you touch your knees (because you have TWO knees) and if the number is odd, you touch your head (because you have ONE head). So, I passed just fine - yeah for no nitrogen narcosis! And then Gaz brought out a coke can to show us that the red disappears at that depth, and also to show how coke is neutrally buoyant at that depth. So, we passed it around, like a volleyball, because it was floating. It felt like we were in space! It was pretty cool! My last dive was the fish identification dive, which was pretty much like a regular dive, except that I got to write down names of the various fish that I could identify. I passed!
So now I am an advanced diver! Proud of me? You should be! 😊 So, the evening after I finished my advanced class, Scuba Junction was having a barbeque, which I went to. It was fabulous fun and I got to know people better, which is always a good result of a barbeque, isn't it? I spent the next two days scuba diving by day and hanging out with cool people by night. To be honest, when I finally left Koh Tao, my heart was breaking. Why is it that whenever I get to really connect with people I have already made reservations for my next stop? It totally sucks that it happens that way! GRR!
So, today I went to Koh Phi Phi, on a day tour. It was beautiful, but there were so many PEOPLE! The fish were cool, but I wish we had seen more. Oh, well, sometimes it works that way. I am glad that I went though, because now that I have been I don't have to worry about regretting not having gone. Next stop is Beijing and then home. Oh, home. Tomorrow is Thailand's New Year, so they are going to be celebrating by spraying everyone with water. I really hope that they don't spray me when I have all my luggage!

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