Well what can i say we only intended staying a week at the most but it turned into two and a half. As soon as we arrived at Buddha view (this is were we did our diving courses) we met up with Anto and Sarah. It was great seeing someone from home we didn’t stop talking for two days. Had a few beers and in general just chilled out for two days. That and Garrett got his hair and beard chopped off. You’ll just have to check out the pictures but its definately different.
On day three we started our diving course - all four of us had signed up. It started off with a video - you know those riveting kind that makes you fall asleep two minutes in. Then one of the instructors went over it all showing us the different equipment explaining what to do and not to do etc. But it was that evening when things started to get exciting cause we were to practice some skills in the pool. After getting our gear ready and hopping into the pool with out instructor G (from Co.Derry would you believe!!) we headed under water to get used to breathing with the regulator. Then it was onto the skills first you had to take the regulator out of your mouth find it again and put it back into your mouth (without panicking - by the way the regulator is the thing that gives you air) this actually wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Next we got to see what it would feel like if our tank ran out of air - the instructor kindly turned off our air supply for this one… We also learned what to do if we got water in our masks and last but not least we had to take our mask off and put it back on all underwater. By the end of the session i was extremely pleased with myself (Garrett was loving it too) as i’d been slightly nervous about it all - but it turned out to be great.
Next day after a morning in the classroom we headed out on the open sea. We had a new instructor who would be with us for the rest of the course a guy from Holland called Rene (we had difficulty remembering his name at first so we nicknamed him Fin Diesel - see the pics he was really really tall). So first we had to pass the swimming test this involved swimming round the boat twice and then thread water for ten minutes - we got lots of stick over this cause we were Irish. For those who don’t know the irish are known worldwide for not being able to swim!!! All four of us had no problems though and passed the test no problems - hurray. So into the sea we jumped with our gear on and down we went. We didn’t get to see much this time round cause we had to do the skills we’d learned in the swimming pool again but we did go for a little swim afterwards. Back on the boat and off we went to the next dive site tuk-tuk (they wanted a wreck underwater site but didn’t have a boat so they sunk a tuk-tuk hence the name). Here we got a chance to check out some fish and practice our buouyancy - basically when you breathe in you go up and when you breathe out you go down the object is to not go too far up or you’ll surface harder than it sounds.
The third day of the course we started at 7.30 in the morning and we headed out to chumporn pinnacle which was absolutely amazing. One minute you were swimming along with nothing around you next minute you were in the middle of a shoal fish. We say all kinds of corals and all kinds of fish all i know was it was a really cool feeling being completely surrounded by water (couldn’t see the surface as we were 12metres down) and there were lots of really amazing colours. We did a second dive but it wasn’t as good as the first one there weren’t near as many fish but we had to do one last skill to complete the course taking our gear on and off underwater. Later when we got back to the island we did a multiple choice test - which we all passed, got our pictures taken for our cards and were offically told we’d completed the open water course. We headed into town to celebrate with the rest of our group didn’t stay out too late as we were exhausted after all the diving. We made up for it the next night though.
We took two days off doing nothing much except lying around on the beach going for a bike trip round the island in general just taking it easy. Anto and Sarah decided to go see some more of Thailand before they moved on to Cambodia so we said our goodbyes for the time being (we hope to meet up again at some stage). Myself and Garrett stayed on we decided to do the Advanced open water course which was an extra two days. The first day we did two dives in the morning another early start….. It was back to Chumporn pinnacle to do a deep dive - this time we’d be going to 30metres. It was just as good as before even better actually as we got to see a black tip reef shark - it was only 6meters away. Here i was willing it to come closer and as it did i realised what i was doing and quickly started willing it not to come too close, but it was brilliant to get such a close up view of it. The second dive at twins was a bit of a let down after the first dive but we did a bit of navigation and what was really good was we were allowed to head off on our own for twenty minutes with no guide - really enjoyed that but it was really hard to keep up with Garrett (we had to stay in our buddy pairs) as usual he was zigzagging around in all directions with his head poking into different holes in the reef to see what was inside!!!!!!!!!!!!! He’s the same even underwater. Well needless to say we managed not to get lost and we got back to the boat safe and sound.
The next part of the course involved a night dive which we went on that evening. It was really different seeing everything at night but we got to see a stingray and a sleeping trigger fish although i had to come up early as i had trouble equalizing my right ear. I was fine once i started ascending to the surface. The following day we headed out again in the morning to shark bay (no sharks this time unfortunately) the visibility wasn’t fantastic but we did get to see some angel fish and starfish - there were lots of other things i just don’t know what they were called. The final dive we practiced our bouyancy one of our group almost landed on a fish which looked exactly like the rocks it was lying beside amazing camouflage. Another night of celebration that night after we’d completed our advanced open water course.
We ended the course on a Friday and intended watching the rugby over the weekend and then Garrett would start a freediving course on the Monday but as fate would have it i ended up getting a really nasty ear infection - lucky me although it meant i got to try out some valium - to try and help me sleep. I also got a nice big dose of Morphine when the ear infection got really bad - instead of better. Luckily i’m up and running again - it took six days. Garrett ever the gentleman brought me food and water to make sure i stayed alive. He did do his freediving course which involves holding your breathe (after enlarging your breath intake) and diving up to 20metres with no oxygen tank!!! He really enjoyed it but got frustrated that he only got as far down as 15metres. Personally i thought it was pretty good going but he’s been practicing at it so we’ll have to wait and see how far he gets next time.
well thats all for now
S&G
