Ko Tao - Dive, dive, dive!

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From the train station at Chumphon, we bought a ticket for a bus/boat combo to get us to Ko Tao. You can get either a fast or slow boat. We chose the slow/cheaper one. We relaxed and after a while got our first glimpse of an island in the Gulf of Thailand. There were numerous touts on the boat, all ready to sell a dive course. We were a bit tired and so asked a few questions but didn't commit to anything.

Once we got off the boat it was tout-tastic with brochures being waved in our faces and offers of taxis abounding. We found out where the nearest accommodation was and headed there. Things are a lot more expensive on the island than they were in Bangkok or Chiang Mai, but we treated ourselves to a large breakfast nonetheless. And then to bed to catch up on our missed sleep.

The next day we went round dive shops, there are 30-40 on the island. It's a bit baffling to know which one to choose, so I'd sent my ex-boss, John an email. Sure enough his reply had arrived and really helped us to know what to look out for and ask more intelligent questions. Any of the instructors who looked a bit bleary or smelled of alcohol were out, so were the shops with shabby looking equipment. Many of the dive shops offered accommodation and some of the people talked more about that, than the course or what you'd be doing. Since all the accommodation in the same price range is pretty similar, this worried. Us. Finally we narrowed down our choice to just 3 candidates based on how enthusiastic they were, how detailed they had been about what you'd be doing and what the shop looked like. We then booked tickets for the boat to Ko Pha Ngan to go to the Full Moon Party. One of the shops had invited us to go with them to do some snorkelling, so we did that. Very unsuccessfully. I'd been snorkelling before but my mask always immediately filled up with water and kept doing it, no matter how many times I emptied it. Very frustrating. Cathal pootled about quite happily though.

The Full Moon Party was mad. Full of very, very drunk people all dancing, falling over, drinking, painting themselves in flourescent paint on what was a lovely beach. We were two of them. However I wasn't drunk enough not to notice that the "Smirnoff" bottles in the plastic buckets some vendors were selling did not have their original seals on. Dread to think what was in them. We stuck to getting buckets of drink from bars and even found some Beer Lao. Tasty. At one point I found a credit card on the floor of a very dirty toilet (dirtiest toilets on our trip so far were on that beach!) and the rest of the wallet was in the bin. I picked it up and asked several local people where I could find the poilce or a station. They all shrugged and wanted to stay out of it. We had been warned that pick-pocketing was a major problem. However I eventually found a policeman. He was drunker than I was. He looked in the wallet and said "no money". Er Doh! Of course there's no money in it. The original owner did have his credit card details nicked (numbers scratched off the card, signature strip gone), his driver's license and ticket back were also in there. Hope he got it back ok, but I'm not convinced. The copper seemed to be partying hard too.

Although we had fun at the party, we were ready to go back after flopping down on the beach to watch the sun come up. We sat amongst all the straws, bottles and general rubbish that people had strewn around. Pity, but the sunrise was gorgeous.

Once back we called our three shortlisted dive shops to ask how many were booked into classes. We wanted a small group with a female instructor. We decided to go with a shop called Scuba Junction because they were very professional, even on the phone, remembering our names, once they heard Cathal's accent. So they sent a jeep to pick us and our luggage up and we booked ourselves into the class and accommodation and then went to sleep. Later that day once we were more compis mentis, we had our introductory talk and watched a video on what we'd be doing and about the equipment and met our instructor, Natalie. She was lovely. They never take more than four people in a group and we were really lucky, cause it was just us. (Apparently most people take longer to recover from the Full Moon Party).

The next day we arrived slightly late for our class. (The people in the cafe had been sleepwalking or something and it took them ages to get us breakfast and let us pay for it!). We went through some more theory, a questionnaire we'd been asked to do, sorted out our equipment  and in the afternoon we went out of the dive boat.

I just could NOT jump out of the boat. Dunno what was up with me as I'm fine with heights, I knew nothing could go wrong, I was happy in the water but I just could not get my feet to move off the boat. So I had to put my equipment on in the water, this is quite tricky with a weight belt and all. We swam out to a lovely area called the Japanese Gardens, which is full of coral beds. We were doing our pool skills in this gorgeous shallow water. I was a bit rubbish at the breathing and had a few panics. However Natalie was brilliant. She reacted to whatever foolishness I was doing immediately (like stopping me from resurfacing which would be a bad idea in deeper water). Soon I was calmer and breathing underwater whilst berating myself for being so rubbish. Cathal was fine. We did some skills like taking our regulators (the bit you breathe through)out and replacing them, swapping them round so you use the back-up. I freaked out a few more times, but eventually got the hang of it. I was much better at clearing my mask of water - underwater and floating up and down. My mask was the best one I'd ever had one, no leakage at all. Natalie had been very careful in selecting it for me.

Then we swam back to the boat underwater. We saw so many fish including one like Nemo!! It was good fun doing that but I was really tired and ready to get back on the boat.  There were a few more exercises to do first and then we dissassembled our equipment and had some pineapple! We went back to shore, washed all the equipment, had a chat with Natalie about our problems and issues. (I had the most, but I said I'd try not to be so bad tomorrow). She was really nice about it and made me feel less rubbish by saying that lots of people had the same problem. I mean it's weird, breathing underwater! My survival instinct was on overdrive!

The next day, Natalie took one look at me (I was absolutely terrified as I'd had all sorts of drowning dreams). She decided we'd do our skills again, not go on the boat and go into the sea from the beach. So that's what we did, we swam around, practised our skills and we were both very relaxed bunnies indeed. Really confident about what to do and confident at navigating round all the equipment.

The next day we were in high spirits and we did our final theory bits and exam. We both got 100% (swots!). In the afternoon we went on the boat. I still did not jump in, but was now an expert in putting my kit on in the water. We went for two dives and saw loads of fish - barracudas, a moray eel, parrotfish, rabbit fish, anemonefish, sargent major fish and baby catfish (really cute, one was lost away from his friends). We were a bit miffed when someone came up minutes after us and said he saw a turtle. Maybe tomorrow!

We do our last two dives tomorrow and finish the course and we get certified. (To dive that is!)

The next day Cathal completed his course but I couldn't descend as I couldn't equalise my ears (get used to the pressure). Turns out I had an ear infection which put me on dry land for about six days. Cathal went on to do an advanced course and I finished my course the day before we left the island.  Which incidentally was also the day the Military decided to seize power in Thailand and oust Thaskin the PM whilst he was safely in the UN!

We wanted to get to Malaysia by train but it quickly booked up with the news, so we ended up having to take a night boat.