Diving...Open Water Course in Koh Tao

Its Tuesday the 19th, and I'm in Koh Phangan, an island just south of Koh Tao. Its been a week since I posted. So I'll try to summarize what's happened in the interim.

First of all, all my scuba diving class photos are here.

I started my first scuba diving course - Open Water Diver - last Tuesday at Buddha View Dive Center on Koh Tao:

I had a huge class of about 14 so they split us into groups of 7. My group was Vicki and Danny (Brits from Manchester):

Magda (Polish woman living in London), Jo (Brit from Birmingham):

Peter (American from Chicago):

and Aisling (pronounced "Ashling", Irish woman from Tipperary):

All turned out to be great folks, and we really bonded.

Here's a couple videos:

1. Aisling on the dive boat:


2. Magda asks Peter why he shaves his legs:


3. Sai Ree beach at night:

For the first two days, I also hung out with Swani and Ingo, two friends from Stuttgart, Germany. They left on Wednesday after doing a couple dives. Here they are in an open air truck taxi on the island, trying to not fall off the truck:

The dive instructors at Buddha View are very funny folk - a couple could be stand-up comedians. We had classroom reviews of diving principles and safety, then they took us 'diving' in the swimming pool at about 3-6 feet. Not hard at all.

Then on the 2nd day, more classroom review, and in the afternoon, our first dive in a gorgeous spot called Mango Bay. The dive spot was great, and we just practiced our classroom learnings.

Then on the 3rd day, we had our "final exam" in the morning. Answer sharing was alllowed. Needless to say, we all passed. That afternoon, we hit the water for our first dive with our dive instructor, Camilo - from Chile:

Camilo's a good teacher, but compared to all the hilarious other instructors, he was a stick in the mud. Magda called him an asshole. But I have to say, he knows his stuff. We saw some amazing fish underwater...like angelfish, batfish, moorish idols, groupers...

There's really nothing like the feeling of floating underwater. It's like flying. Descending is quite fun - like a slow jump out of an airplane. I had a great time swimming around down to 18 meters (60 feet). We went on two more dives on Friday morning, which were captured by videotape - I have a DVD, parts of which I'll try to put up later. Then that afternoon, we had a celebration. Plenty of beer, needless to say. Here's the group celebrating our triumphant last dive:

Buddha View was great, but by Friday, I'd been there 5 days and was ready for a change. I didn't love the bungalow options. They were either 400 baht (about $11.00) for a 'modern, but ugly room, or 250 baht (about $4.00) for a wood and thatch bungalow off in the hinterlands with a hammock. I chose the wood and thatch, which gave me the hammock and isolation I needed, but as noted earlier, it put me closer to the nonstop sound of roosters...and the beats of the bars playing music all night, floating out over the water.

Here's me in my hammock:

I don't look happy there, but really...I am.