Monday 7th April
Another early start, onto the speed boat and then the dive boat, for our third dive we went back to “Twin Peaks” but this time went to a deeper part of the reef to learn different skills, like buoyancy. This time to get into the water we all did the James Bond roll off the side of the boat, I’m not sure I’ll do that again – I lost my mask and was spluttering about afterwards!! The conditions were amazing for this dive and we had almost 40 metres of visibility, the water was still like bath water and again I just dove in my bikini and a rash vest. The second dive we went to “White Rock” which wasn’t quite as good visibility as there was a thermo-cline but it was still 10-20 metres at different points. This was the best dive yet as we came across a Green Turtle!! It was amazing, he was just there having his lunch and wasn’t even bothered that we were there. He turned around saw us and then just carried on eating, it was such an incredible experience. After the dive it was back on the dive boat and with a few forms to complete we were now Open Water qualified, it was a bit of an anticlimax really because all we all wanted to do was go and do another dive. I would have done it all over again I loved it that much. Was nice to think we had an evening without homework though!! We got back and the whole group had lunch together and arranged to meet up for dinner and a trip to the Mai Tai boxing. Our lead instructor Ant was the MC for the boxing and said it was a good night out so we thought it would be a good one to go for. That afternoon James and I lazed about, I fell asleep – what a surprise!!! We met up with everyone a about 7.00 and just ate in the resort then walked along to the boxing which was great fun. There were two ladies fighting and we all agreed they were more vicious and feisty than the men, it was painful to watch! After the boxing had ended we all went to Lotus bar for a few drinks and then the youngsters got very drunk and James and I decided we had had enough and walked along the beach home.
Tuesday 8th April
Our first lie in!!! Well in three days anyway!! We slept in till about 3.00pm!! Yup, think it might have more to do with alcohol rather than tiredness but all the same was so lovely to stay in bed! We went down to the resort for “brunch” and then went down to the beach where some of the guys and girls from our course were. We ended up playing a massive game of ball and Frisbee, both at the same time and had a lovely rest of afternoon. We met up with people again for dinner that night and decided to catch a lady-boy show called Queens!! It was very amusing, highly amateur but amusing all the same and one of them was so ladylike it was scary! At the end of the show they got some of the men from the audience up on stage dressed in their outfits, luckily we had two rugby boys in our group so they felt more than at home dressing up!! We had decided to carry on with our diving and do the Advance Open Water course as we got a discount if we carried on and neither of us were ready to stop. So we got an early night ready for our sessions the following day.
Wednesday 9th April
We were back in the classroom at 9.30am and spend the morning conducting knowledge reviews and going over the basics of using a compass and dive computer. After grabbing a quick lunch we were on the dive boats out to the first of our two dives of the day. We headed out to the “Chumpon Pinnacle” with the water at 30 degrees and 20 metre visibility this was to be our deep dive to 30 metres. We saw bigger fish this time as we were deeper and didn’t feel any effects of nitrogen narcosis. Basically sometimes when people do deep dives they can suffer from nitrogen narcosis which means that you act a bit drunk under the water, I think we were all secretly hoping we might feel something but everyone was fine!! Damn it! Our second dive was to Twin Peak and was a navigation dive where we went off on our own and tested our navigation skills the visibility was even better this time 20/30metres and the water slightly warmer to so we really didn’t have any trouble with the navigation. This time James and I went and found Nemo on our own and swam through some rocks, well ok James found Nemo and I followed but hey you can’t do everything!!! We then went back on the boat to get back to the mainland for a quick turnaround of dinner and change of clothes ready for our night dive. I must admit, I was very apprehensive about doing this dive, not sure why I’m not exactly scared of the dark but I think I was just worried about loosing people! The dive site was called “White Rock” so it was one we had done on Open Water which was good so I knew it wasn’t a particularly advanced dive site and we were lucky that the water was still 30 degrees and the visibility (with a torch!!) was 20 metres. The dive itself was very cool, although I have to admit holding onto James hand quite a few times, I know what a wimp! Halfway through the dive we turned off our torches and could see the phosphoresce if we moved our hands in-front of our faces, again most of the time with the torches off I was holding onto James’ hand! But it was amazing and I would definitely do it again, it would have been even better if there weren’t so many other boats around as they cat light down onto the reef which made it more difficult to see animal life with the torches off. When we got back to the mainland unfortunately we still had to complete a couple of knowledge reviews so I started on them while James went and got take away from downstairs! That evening while we sat on the balcony finishing the reviews and having a drink we made a little friend a black a white cat. Well as some of you know I have a little cat called Lucy who is black and white, although this cat wasn’t as pretty as my Lucy we still fed her and had a play. She was very cute and after that she kept waiting for us whenever we went to or came back from the room, what a shame!!
Thursday 10th April
Another 9.30am kick off and straight into more theory, this time about calculating nitrogen levels in the body when doing a multi-level dive, needless to say its complicated and actually quite boring, but very important!! After lunch we were back on the boat and getting ready for our 2 dives which we were allowed to plan and dive ourselves, no supervision, woo hoo! Rosie one of the girls we met on the open water course didn’t have a buddy so she came with me and James and we also got to take out our instructors Underwater Camera and got some amazing shots of us under the water, and some of fish of course!! The first dive at “ South West Pinnacles” was a bit crap for me as my mask misted up and nothing I was doing would clear it, I was just going to go back to the surface but we were doing a multi level dive so I wasn’t sure how safe it would be! Our second dive at “White Rock” was very cool, we got some amazing shots of the coral and the fish, it was such a rush to be able to navigate around on your own, going at your own pace and where you liked. I adore being under the water! After our second dive was finished we were officially Advanced Open Water Divers and can now dive a hell of a lot cheaper than we could before!! We had another quick turnaround after our dive and met up for dinner and a few drinks. James and I had decided to leave the following day and see what the other side of Thailand had in store for us so we left the drinkers early and went to sort out our flights and accommodation.
Friday 11th April
We were up at 9.30 to check out and grabbed some breakfast a bakery just along the road. It was a scorching hot day and after a brisk walk we were both in need of a cool down and were kicking ourselves for not extending the room check out for later, instead we stopped off at the pool to try and cool down but with the water being so warm that was futile. Instead I ran and got loads of water from the shop and we ended up covering ourselves in that just to cool down!! Our taxi picked us up at 14.30, which we nearly missed cos we were too busy cooling down but we got there just in time and got on the ferry back to Ko Samui with no dramas. We had decided to stay one night on Ko Samui to break up the travel and had booked our flight for the following day. We went back to the lovely Thai place for dinner and watched a movie back at the apartment.
Saturday 12th April
Up at 7.30 for the taxi to the airport and caught our flight to Krabi at 10.30, it was quite sad to be leaving Koh Tao and Koh Samui behind as I had spent such a long time between those islands but I knew that we had more fun waiting for us ahead. When we arrived at Krabbi we took a mini bus into town to see what it was like and we weren’t impressed, it was very spaced out and there seemed to be a distinct lack of nice places to stay. We then got another bus to Ko Lanta which was a mission in itself! We got told it would take 2 hours! Funny cos it wasn’t even close to 2 hours! Bloody Thai’s! We drove for a few hours then got a ferry then drove some more and got a ferry then drove some more and finally arrived in Ko Lanta. We left at 13.00 and got there at 17.15!! I don’t seem to have much luck with mini bus’s as this one didn’t have any air conditioning either!!
We stayed at a place called Lanta Villas which was ok, a bit of a let down after Ban’s but then we had been spoilt, it was on the beach front which was lovely and it meant I could sit on our terrace on a sun lounger and not need to go and lie on the beach and get sand everywhere!! Also I was closer for food and drink! Lazy or what! We walked along the beach that evening and found a nice Italian for dinner.
Sunday 13th April (Thai New Year aka Sonkram)
As a rule of thumb when its Thai new year I wouldn’t recommend hiring a scooter and going to see what the town is like. For the simpler reason that children and adults line the side of the road and throw buckets of water at you as you try to drive past and not only is this water stinking coz its probably been sat there collecting since last new year but it also has flour in it! So there we are heading off to see the town as I am suddenly entered into a wet T-Shirt competition which I certainly did not sign up for! I was bricking it about going on the back of the scooter anyway without people finding it hilarious to chuck buckets yes BUCKETS of water at me! Well as I’m sure you have already ascertained that little trip around the town did not last for very long! After getting dry we grabbed a bit of lunch at one of the beach restaurants, rather than venturing out into the water party! After lunch James wanted to go out again, insisting that everyone would have got bored by now and it would probably be over. There was no way I was getting back on that scooter so I sunbathed and off he went. After about ¾ of an hour I was getting a bit worried that he might have come off and tried his phone but it went straight through to voicemail, so now I really started to worry. At this point I hear a squelching noise coming towards me, I turn around to find James drenched and I mean absolutely soaked through so much so that his very expensive and not at all fake from Bangkok diving watch has fogged up, his phone is completely broken. The two books we were going to exchange at the bookstore look as though they have been dropped in the bath and they were in my rucksack! Turns out when your on your own on a scooter they literally run into the road and up-turn a bucket on your head! I can’t imagine how I would react to that!! Even his trainers were soaked, after three days of drying they still weren’t properly dry and they stunk! We washed them three times once we got to Oz to get the smell out, nasty! After our traumatic day we decided we deserved a Thai massage on the beach but even that was not going to be easy. Both of us had the most painful massage’s of our lives. We reckon the ladies were taking it out on us coz they had to work on New Year’s. I had to ask her to stop about 6 times, even James who likes them to dig in had to ask her to stop, they were evil! Such a shame as it was to be our last Thai massage in Thailand and they ruined it! Cow’s! We found another restaurant along the beach that night and had another nice dinner with a few drinks. It was lovely to look up to the sky and see all the lanterns in the sky where people had made New Year wishes. I’m just not sure of the safety aspect of attacking people on bikes with water, those things are dangerous enough as it is!
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