Open Water and Advanced Open Water Diving

Hello everyone, bit behind on this as usual but here's the next installment.

We arrived at Koh Tao pretty shattered after a mental amount of travelling. We had organised our accomodation at Bans Diving Resort and thought we could just crash out when we got there. We managed to get ourselves straight on to the Open Water course and started with a lecture and intro at 5pm that day! We got our enormous manuals and had been told to swot up on the first 3 chapters! We went for a swim in the crystal clear waters - amazing! So good to be by the sea at last!! We started reading the book and answering all quizs like good little boys, unfortunately there was an obscene amount to cover and we didn't get anywhere near the end! A little worried that the teacher would be upset with us we went to the meeting where Neil (who I thought was called Ngil) our instructor told us that we didn't need to bother with the last few hours we'd spent reading and plonked us down in front of a super cheesy DVD which he couldn't be bothered to watch with us. Afterwards we were totally nackered and so went to bed ready for our pool session the following day.

We got all our kit and got in the pool after proving we could swim 12 lengths and tread water for an eternity! Me and Adrian were totally on it and basically it is easy. We did all the skills like mask clearing, regularor recovery, buddy breathing and bouancy and were well excited about get out in the sea tomorrow. We got along so well with Neil, not because we are shovenists, and we made great friends with Paul (Inspector Gadget) our divemaster. We had another classroom session were we aced all the tests and then we got yet another early night as we were off on the boat at 7 in the morning!

Our first 2 dives were amazing! We went to Mango Bay for the first and the visibility was unbelievable, you could see for miles! It was amazing, loads of fish and such a great feeling being underwater. We had skills to perform and then went for a swim, Me and Adrian as buddies, around the U-shaped coral reef. Amazing first dive, love it. The second dive was at White Rock where we saw massive Trigger fish and Nemo the Clown fish, another amazing experience and we make great buddies and Neil was really impressed at how easy we had found it. We returned to the big dive boat with massive grins on our faces totally excited about the rest of the dives we are going to be doing in the next few days. That afternoon we had another classroom session, completed our tests and then ate at Bans restaurant, again! Loving the fish so much we went snorkelling just off the beach where the number of fish was amazing. I love the beach! Bikinis, the sea, sand, the sun and loads of fishies!

The next day we had to take our final exam in the morning before doing our final 2 dives of the course. We'd been worrying about the exam but that was pretty ridiculous, it was easy!! Hard bit over we collected our kit, shiny new kit because we were being film that day! The first dive was at Twin Peaks and we went to 18m, it as great as always, loads more skills including the CESA Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent which was a bit worrying but we passed with flying colours and had another great dive. The final dive was back at White Rock and again we had skills to do and loads of tropical fish to see and then we were qualified open water divers - hooray! That night we had a few beers and a meal with the entire group including Neil and Paul who are both total legends! After no alcohol for some time the few beers we had really went to our heads, we started the advance open water course the next day so didn't go too hard, we were saving ourselves for the night after becoming advanced.

We started the Advanced course with a meeting with Neil, there were only 3 of us, Me, Adrian and Steve the slow Canadian from the previous course. Awesome, so good having a small group. We had 3 dives today, the Deep water dive, the navigational dive and then the Night Dive. so excited! Paul joined us again and we got on the boat with all the sexy divers again. The Deep dive went to 30m! There was a possibility of sharks as well as getting Nitrogen Nicosis, which is like being drunk. Apparently some people chase fish trying to give them their air or swim head first down into the sand - maddness! Unfortunately we didn't see sharks or get Narced :-(, but going to 30m was awesome. The next dive we used our compass skills that we'd practised on the beach by Neil giving us the bearing of some hot ladies and sending us directly towards them. This was great, we basically were on our own and navigated ourselves around Twin Peaks giving us loads of time to stop and see all the underwater life. We returned to the beach for some food before getting back on the boat for the night dive. Man the night dive was something else, illuminated only by the moon and our small torches we followed Neil's glow stick into the dark blue depths. It was awesome, got to see so many more different things like sleeping Trigger fish, Sting Rays and massive hermit crabs. We switched our torches off to see the phospherescent plankton and then surfaced into the night, so weird - loved every minute of it! We had 2 more dives the next day and knew it'd be a big night after that so we went to bed quite early, after meeting some of our friends from the Chiang Mai trek who had made it to Koh Tao, still buzzing from the dives today.

The next day we had a bit of a lie in and then in the afternoon we had our last two dives. Our first dive was a multi level dive at South West Pinnacle. We had been to the underwater photography lecture and had borrowed Neils camera to take with us. We had been joined by another divemaster called Louisa as well as Chris who we'd met yesterday who was instructing another group of divers. When we arrived at SW pinnacle we saw some shark fins on the surface near a fishing boat which was throwing bait into the sea. We quickly dived in and started our dive. Unfortunately we didn't get to see any sharks but it was another awesome dive, loads of sea anenemies and a cool swim through. Our last dive was at Shark Island (named because of its shape). This was another great dive site, we saw a blue spotted sting ray and I was bitten by a cleaning mooray! Just as we were on our way back to the boat Adrian pulled on my fin, again! but this time he had spotted a giant hawk billed turtle! Amazing, we were the only ones to see it, we swam along side it for a little way before finishing our last dive! What a way to finish! We were Advanced Open Water Divers! Time to celebrate!

We started with a few beers with Paul and Neil and then got on the buckets! Neil had heard about my party trick from Egypt and was plugging for a repeat performance. After he had fuelled us with alcohol the flaming Manjina came out once more, this time lit using a flaming sambuka! We had a wicked night drinking with our new dive friends as well as the 3 ladies from Chiang Mai and their siblings. A great way to end our time on Koh Tao.

Getting to Koh Tao

Hey everyone,

After having the most amazing time ever in Chiang Mai we embarked on a brutal 36 hour travel experience to Koh Tao. After chilling in Chiang Mai for a few hours before the bus left we set off on a 10 hour trip to Bangkok, luckily the bus was only half full so we managed to spread out a little and get some rest. We arrived in Bangkok at around 6am with nowhere to stay and with all our bags and everything with us! Luckily we were able to leave our stuff at the tourist info but it didn't open for another few hours - perfect! We sat around on the street amongst the crack heads and weirdos before it opened by that time we were pretty hot and sweaty and not looking forward to the day ahead. Still we went to our favourite road and managed to make a couple of cokes last about 5 hours each. We fended off some lady boys and women selling frogs and fell asleep on some bar tables. Before long we had wasted the day away and it was time to catch the next 10 hour bus followed by boat!

This time we weren't so lucky and the bus was rammed. The staff were extremely dodgy, didn't speak a word of english and were probably going to kill us all! We listened to the film previews for about a million times until we knew the words and then we were there! Or not! We got chucked out at the side of some road with our bags and deserted - interesting! More and more people got thrown out of many buses until there was quite a gathering, it was about 4am. After about an hour of worry a small truck turned up and pick up about 5 of us leaving the rest behind! It took us to the most banter port in the world but there was a boat there so things were looking up. Unfortunately the boat didn't leave for another 3 hours but we met some classic people who made the wait slightly less depressing, Cat, Debs, Chris and Paul the German with only a pair of small bags, one of which has a book, no 2 books in it - what a hero!

We boarded the boat and I slept, we arrived in Koh Tao with its sandy beaches and palm trees - Hooray! We had arranged to do our diving with Bans Diving and so they picked us up and took us to the resort, easy. We checked in about 9am and aquired our Open Water Diving books ready for our first lecture at 17:30!! Pretty tired with checked out the resort and the beach, it was beautiful, thanks for the tip Gems, Bans is awesome!

So glad to be by the beach and the atmosphere was great, so much more relaxing. Going to have a great time here.

Ed

The Chiang Mai Reggae Bar and the Long Neck Tour

Hello again everyone, really struggling to keep up with the posts, but here's the next installment for your viewing pleasure.

After the 3 day tour of the jungle we had become quite close to the people on the trek and so all decided to meet up at the famous Roots Reggae Bar in Chiang Mai. No wonder it was famous, this place was awesome, loads of live reggae bands playing plenty of Bob Marley, wicked. We got on the buckets - standard. I got in a bit of trouble with a Welsh girl who didn't like me challenging the thai kids to do 'the move' but it all went fine in the end and we had a wicked time. I even tried my hand at some bongooing until I broke the drummers drum stick which pretty much got me a black mark next to my name. Anyhoo had an awesome night, until, Locky the aussie turned up at our hotel looking particularly dazed looking for Remy and the key to his room. This didn't look good! He tried to pull himself together and explained how he had been forced to kill a savage dog with a stick! This was not cool! Anyway we hit the sack ridiculously late which was pretty stupid considering our Longneck tour left at stupid o clock in the morning!

Again barely managing to get down any of the 5* garmet breakfast we were bundled into a mini bus for the Longneck tour. Our guide was called Eddie, which quickly got turned into Eddie Murphy for some reason and he found the fact I was seriously hungover very amusing indeed. He especially enjoyed telling us that the tour invovled an enormous amount of minibus riding around stupid winding roads, not ideal at all! It took 4 hours for us to get the The Golden Triangle where we saw where Laos, Thailand and Burma met. We took a boat trip to Laos and sampled the cobra and scorpion whiskey! Nasty stuff, especially when you are feeling pretty bad already. Again there was no boarder control or anything, just a 20Baht fee! We saw a black bear caged and demented which was pretty horrible and then returned to the minibus by nutcase speed boat!

Another 2 hours in the god for saken minibus and we arrived at the Longneck village. Not at all what we expected! It was so tourist-a-fied. The women (and young girls) with the ridiculously heavy rings round there necks just sat around selling scarves to tourists. We weren't impressed but both Adrian and Caroline did get attack by an incontinent child which was amusing. Another 4 hours by minibus, which nearly killed me, and we were back.

We went for a final night at the Reggae Bar and meet up with Locky and Remy again as well as Ronald who was a Dutch guy from the longneck tour. We exchanged details with everyone and plan to meet the aussies in Canberra to shot a Kangaroo and BBQ it! We also found out Ronald is going to buy a tuk tuk and drive it back to Holland, what a hero, I'm going to join him for the Nepal Stretch! The next day we were leaving Chiang Mai much to our dissappointment as there is so much to do there, we will definately have to return. Plus the fact that we had a ridiculous amount of travelling to do before we made it to Koh Tao didn't make leaving any easier!

Ed