I hopped on a night bus and early morning ferry and was back in Koh Tao. The bus was the Thai style sleeper - reclining seats. Luckily the bus was very empty and I was able to stretch out across four seats...
I checked into a hostel I had been recommended on my last visit but never made it to - Taco Shack. This is a small hostel run by a couple American blokes and has a very good atmosphere. Upon walking in I was greeted by my new room-mates and ended up heading to the beach with them after a late breakfast together.
We went to Freedom beach on the south of the island, relaxed in the burning hot water (it was like bath water), and climbed to the view point.
We finished the night with a bit of a party in the dorm - drinking, music, card games - before heading out for a night I don't remember...
The next day a few of us headed to the beach, I booked in diving starting the next day before heading back for my last night at Taco Shack. It was much the same as the previous night, except this time we crashed the Koh Tao Pub Crawl.
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At 10am I was picked up by one of the guys from Mojo's and taken over to the dive shop. Sairee Beach and Mae Haad (where the pier is) are not exactly close - it's a good twenty minute walk.
I checked back into the Lucky House - Mojo's provided accommodation where I had stayed a few nights on my last visit, and that afternoon I was off diving!
I decided to ease back into it with a couple of fun dives before starting the course, and thank fuck I did. My first dive was horrible - troubles equalising, breathing very heavily, just generally not relaxed.
What is crazy though is how the water temperature has changed. Back in March when I did the open water everyone was wearing a wetsuit. Now in June, the water temperature is around 32 degrees - no need for a suit!
The second dive was a little better; the decent was a lot easier and I was able to see more, including a sea snake!
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The next day I started the advanced open water course. I met Mahdi, my instructor from Palestine, and Mirrin, my Dutch dive buddy also completing the course. We began with basics on how to use an underwater compass and dive computer, had a quick break for lunch and we were off for the boat.
The first dive focussed on underwater navigation. After descending, we were told to stop and take note of a patch of coral, and the direction we had come from the boat.
We swam along the coral beach and came to a more empty patch where we had to swim straight on the same bearing and same depth, turn around and come back. Not too difficult. Next we had to swim out and swim in a square, counting kicks for distance. This was a little harder but I roughly ended up back where I started!
The second dive was a lot more fun. We went to the Buoyancy World dive site - a set of man made obstacles used to teach new divers underwater control.
One of these obstacles was a set of of steel boxes that we had to negotiate. Viewed from the side, it looked like the diagram below, with the blue line the path through it.
What I learnt is just how much your breath impacts your position in the water. Once neutrally buoyant using the BC vest, simply taking a big breath in is enough to float you up a metre or so, likewise to descend, a big exhale is enough to drop you down. This test was done entirely using your lungs ... crazy!
From here we swam through the Rocktopus to further test our buoyancy skills.
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The following day we were set to do an early morning dive at 6am. Everyone walked down to beach and looked around - no boat. We waited, sent the longtail out to look, no luck. As it turned out the boat was parked on the other side of the island due to bad weather conditions overnight - where there isnt any cell reception... and the boat was out of action due to a rope being caught in the propeller!
To make up to us, the school took us out for coffee and breakfast, and gave us two free fun dives that afternoon - not exactly complaining there!
I went out once more with Paola, the Chilean dive master I had on my first two dives, and we dived two sites I hadn't done before. They were both very shallow - around 6m average depth - but as a result they were two very long dives; 50 and 56 minutes! My longest before that was about 35 minutes. I was also by this stage a lot more relaxed and could control my breathing infinitely better than before - breathing through a straw as the instructors told us to do!
The dives had a lot of coral, anemone, clams and smaller fish...
but I was also lucky enough to spot my first puffer fish! (just upper left of the middle)
That night we stayed on that side of the island and had dinner before going on the night dive. Wow. We got in the water at 7:30pm with our torches and descended into pitch black. The only thing you could see was where someone's torch was pointed.
It was the most bizarre and scary dive of my life. Since you can't see any of the particles you usually see floating in the water, it really felt like we were flying through the night sky. Pitch black surroundings, with divers floating through nothing. Incredible.
We saw a few more puffer fish, but the most amazing thing was a Jenkins' Stingray swimming through - an easy metre plus across.
We found a sandy patch and were instructed to sit down and cover our lights, 12 metres down. Once everyone's light was out, waving your hands through the water would light up the bioluminescent plankton. I'd seen plankton on beaches in Thailand and Vietnam before, but never like this!
The dive lasted 47 minutes with an average depth of 8 metres. It was amazing.
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Another early wake up and we finally went on the 6am dive. We took at 45 minute boat ride out to Chunpon Pinnacle - the furthest site from Koh Tao.
This site is absolutely amazing - incredible visibility. The water was so blue, so clear, and the fish so big!
Chunpon was where we did the deep dive. The descent from the boat was straight down to 30m, sitting on the ocean floor. The instructor told us on the surface he was going to ask us basic math questions to see if we were affected by nitrogen narcossis. He would hold up a few fingers and we had to respond with the number it would take to add them to 13. (i.e. if he had 8 we would answer with 5).
The first couple times he asked, everyone got it right. On my third attempt, after being down for a few minutes, I just stared blankly at him, completely unable to work out what the difference between 7 and 13 was. Nitrogen narcosis is said to be a similar state to being drunk. Crazy.
From here we swam up further and around the pinnacle at the 20m mark. It was a brilliant dive!
Next up we moved the boat and it was time for my last dive, the shipwreck. The top deck of the HTMS Sattakut landing vessel sits at about 26m below. This was an old WWII US Navy vessel that was intentionally sunk for diving purposes in Koh Tao back in 2011.
The visibility on this dive was horrendous. Even Mahdi said he'd never seen it so bad. Around the ship, if someone swam away more than three metres they completely vanished. We all had to stay very close to each other to ensure safety - no one wanted to get lost!
We spent twenty minutes or so swimming around the boat, checking out the front and rear guns and the top deck cabin. The cabin had some nice big fish in it...
We swam back to the nearby dive site where the boat was situated. For ten minutes swimming we couldn't see a thing, just trusting that Madhi had his compass bearings correct to get to where the boat was!
We swam back to the surface and that was it; advanced course completed.
That night Mojo's had a free bbq to celebrate three new instructors completing their qualifications. It was good to have a few drinks with the crew I'd spent the past four days with and say my goodbyes - I might never be back in Koh Tao!
It was a crazy full on four days on Koh Tao. Nine dives in total, bringing my log up to fifteen. I am so much more confident in the water now with everything feeling infinitely more natural. I can't wait to get back down there!
I caught a night boat once more back to Bangkok after finishing my diving. Much to my pleasure it had bunk beds and power sockets .. much better than my last experience!
Very well done Jas!
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