day 4: doing the scuba thing

today was our day to go diving around koh tao which is what the little island has fast become famous for.  the island is surrounded with awesome reef formations filled with gazillions of colorful tropical fish and is even home to whale sharks at different times of the year, though these are getting harder and harder to spot wtih the masses of divers that are descending into the seas these days.  our huge tiled deck was the perfect place to roll out my mat and get a proper asana practice in so michael headed out to research our diving options for the day.  he returned with the good news that we could do a two site dive that afternoon.  i had played with the idea of getting my certification while i was on koh phangan all those months but never ended up blocking out the time to do it (it would have required two solid weekends devoted to that) so unfortunately i could only do one of the dives.  i was a little bummed because it was one of the sites that i had already snorkeled and i was hoping to go to a deeper location but alas they dont let the newbies do much in the dive world for good reason i am sure.  our little dive group made our way to the boat about noon and headed out to the "southwest pinnacle" an underwater formation a few miles out.  i swam and snorkeled around with all the fishies in the deep blue sea, watching michael and all the other divers descend down a long rope into the abyss below.  i was sunbathing when they returned and michael said the formations were cool and they saw a gigantic grouper fish but no whale sharks for them on this go around.  we set sail for ao leuk, the same bay that i had swam ashore to on my last adventures on koh tao, and i got the low down on how to dive.  it had been ten years since my last time breathing underwater but it all came back pretty easily once i was in the water.  after i passed my little skills with the regulator and stuff we were off on our way swimming around the bottom of the bay.  i love the sensation of breathing under water and i will most likely be going for my certification in the near future and then michael and i will be diving fools i'm sure.  we saw so many beautiful fishies and about six different sting rays all with these iridescent blue spots sprinkling their sand colored body.  one was even building a nest! all in all it was a great day out on the water and we finished it off watching the sunset and having a drink at the freedom bar, the only establishment in our secret little cove we had found the day before.  the deck had a perfect view of the sun descending into the water just beyond the edge of chalok ban kao and we lingered until all the pink clouds had finished transforming into night.