Early in the morning, before sunrise, we arrived to Chumphon pier and had to check in again, I still don't understand why, but they had to see our tickets for the bus-boat trip again.
There was loads of round-eyed people, mostly backpackers, and they filled up two big catamaran boats, with around 300 on each, and then we went out on the worst boattrip we ever had. The staff handed out small plastic bags, before take off, and we got seasick pills aswell, normaly none of us get seasick, but this boattrip was just undescribeable crazy and out of control. Over half of the people on the boat vomited during the trip, and even some of the staff had to sit down to control their seasickness. We could feel that sometimes the boat didn't even touch the water, we were just jumping in our seats, and the boat was being tossed from side to side.
We were all so tired from a ruff night in the bus, and those 2 hours was the longest we ever had. Finally we got to Koh Tao, and were totally knackered and hungry. After breakfast/lunch, we split up with Christian and Tanya, and went to sleep.
In the evening we pretty much just went out to eat, and then back to bed again. We really had two ruff days, so we were worth anything.
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| Walking to the horrible cataman boats |
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| This is definately a boat to avoid, if possible |
Monday 30th Dec.
I don't really remember doing anything particularly this day. I have been a week behind with writing blog, so it's hard to seperate the days, specially when we haven't done anything special.
We've just been relaxing and swimming in the beautiful sea. Oh and for the first time in over a week we went jogging again. It was really hard to do in Bangkok, since every road is smoking busy and the traffic is crazy, so we didn't want to risk our lifes by doing it there.
Erik & Christian talked a lot about diving, and how Koh Tao is the best and cheapest place in the world to do it. There's at least 30 diving schools on the island, so it's definately the main thing that people do around this place.
Erik really wanted to give it a shot, and eventually he got me talked in to it aswell. I had a bad experience, with diving many years ago, so to be honest I wasn't happy about it. But we booked a discover scuba diving course for the following morning, and I prepared myself for giving it a second try.
At night we went out for dinner with Christian & Tanya, and they took us to a ladyboy cabaret at night. Very entertaining and different. Watch the video and you'll see what it is.
Tuesday 31st Dec.
Christian joined us on the discover scuba diving for free, because he used to work as a divemaster and instructor at Big Blue diving. It started with an orientation about the fundamentals of scuba diving, so we could dive safely. Had a lunch break and then we got our equipment and was ready to go.
Wednesday 1st Jan.
In the late afternoon, when we finally got out of bed, we walked to town to get some junkfood. It was litterally a ghost town, very few people was hanging out in different restaurants, and we could tell that everyone was having breakfast, eventhough it was around 4pm. So that made us feel better. If you're allowed to suffer from a big night out, it's absolutely on the 1st of January.
Thursday 2nd Jan.
I was tired of doing nothing, so we decided to walk to the south of the island. Koh Tao is only 7 km long and 3-4 km wide, so it's a small island. Walked along the beach as far as possible, until we reached a bunch of expensive and fancy resorts, then we found a little isolated private beach, that we actualy should pay to visit, since we didn't live on one af the resorts. So we didn't stick around for long, before we returned to the backpacker world again, of course without paying!
I was still annoyed over my failed diving lesson, specially because Christian said that it wasn't normal to take people out on the deep water to begin with. So I couldn't help blaming the instructor for my failure. They should have started out slowly, as written on their homepage, and as they said. What they did was wrong and against normal procedures.
We walked by a sign that said that you could try diving in a pool for free, to see if you were interested in diving. So I tried that and didn't have a problem with the equipment there. It felt safe and comfortable. Now Erik took the decision, to walk back to Big Blue and explain the situation for them. Several instructors at Big Blue, said that it's definately not a normal way to start discover scuba diving on. We asked if I could get a one-on-one diving course the next day, and if that didn't went well, then we at least knew that I tried it the right way, and that diving wasn't my kind of sport. It was the only right thing to do, since I was still annoyed over it, and Erik was as well! Now I was excited and of cause nervous, but nervous in a good way. Now I wouldn't feel pushed or rushed into during the skills as fast as others, and I could take it easy and learn it slowly.
Erik already signed up for the open water course, and he was suppose to start in the afternoon, but now he wanted to wait and see if I had better luck this time. So if I managed to do it, we could do the open water course together. We enjoyed dinner with C & T, and in order to be ready for the next day we went to bed early.
Friday 3rd Jan
I was gonna meet my instructor at 12pm, but she didn't show up, and the waiting time for another instructor made me more nervous. But when he finally came, I pulled myself together and convinced myself that I could do it. Kept thinking about that everyone else is doing it, so why should I have such a big problem!?
Meeting in the restaurant at Big Blue and had our final academics and the exam. The exam was quite easy, 50 questions and 4 answers to each question, and we all graduated with at least 92% correct answers.
Monday 6th Jan.
Waking up way to early, and meeting at Big Blue at 6.30am. We were really excited (and nervous) for our dives today. We had a cameraman with us, so we wanted to look good and act cool. We started out with a 18 meters fundive, just to feel comfortable again. Nice dive with a lot of things to explore. There's some certain rules about diving time and surface time, that we need to follow to avoid decompression sickness and nitrogen narcosis. So after our first dive we had to wait for a few hours, before we were allowed to dive again. Second dive included buoyancy and the mask skill, on 10 meters. Only because I had been thinking too much about it, I paniced while doing the mask skill, but Oli & Erik pulled me down and I finished the skill, that I hope I'm never gonna have to do again. Erik was totally cool and even had the energy to look in the camera and wave. Finally time for fundiving again! We were already back at Big Blue around 11.30 again, and luckily we all passed the tests and skills. Now officially open water divers. In the night we all met up again and watched the professional video together, and luckily we got it copied from Leah who bought it. See the video below, and maybe skip the intro from Big Blue! We actually wanted to celebrate our diver license, but after dinner with Leah, we were all too tired, and didn't bother going out.
Tuesday 7th Jan.
We checked out, and spend most of the morning in the restaurant, researching and planning our next step. Unfortunately there wasn't a nightboat to Suratthani, as we were told earlier, so we took the Lomprayah catamaran to Koh Samui, and arrived around 5pm. This boatdrive was much more pleasant than our last experience with this company. It was only a one-night-stop at Koh Samui. So the story will be continued in the next update.
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| One of the beautiful guys (and also Tanya's friend) |
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| Hanging out at one of the many beach restaurants |
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| I had to pull Erik home, after his meeting with these gorgeous men :-) |
Cabaret Video
When we booked the course they told us we would start in shallow water, and practise the initial skills, before we would go diving. All of a sudden the instructors changes plans, and said we were gonna go out on a boat and do the skills in the deep water. No one seemed to care about that, so we just went with the flow. When we got to the boat, our instructor actually wanted to start diving down to 7-8 meters, and then make us do the skills (3 regulator skills and a half and full flooded mask). We were definately not ready for that, so we made her change her plans, so then we did the skills just 20cm under the surface. Which was way more reasonable for beginners.
We were only 3 on the team and when we started the actual diving, we should follow a line down. I got ½ meter under the water and then I started to panic, I wasn't comfortable with the equipment, and definately not comfortable with breathing under water. That's so unnatural, and I skipped out of the course straight away. So that's the second time that happend to me.
Erik, Christian, the instructor and another student went for a dive. Erik had been really nervous aswell, especialy after I skipped out, but he managed to dive anyway. I waited on the boat for them, and they were all really excited when they got back again (even more frustrating and annoying for me).
After a break they went for their second dive, I didn't even want to try it again. It was over for me - I was done with scuba diving. Erik really liked it after his second dive, and after a while he started considering, if he should take the "open water" course.
At night Erik wanted a big steak, and after entering a restaurant with steak on the menu, we realized that 95% of the menu contained sushi, which ment that their steak probably wasn't anything special. Instead of leaving the restaurant, Erik decided we should eat sushi. I was shooked, but very satisfied with that suggestion. And to my big surprise he actually liked it.
There was parties all along the beach side, and every single restaurant and bar was filled with party people, at one of the bars some locals had lit fire to a jumping rope and the young kids was jumping into it several times, and most of them got burned. 2 days later we were told, that the local guys swinging the rope gets commision from the hospital, for burning tourists, so the hospital can earn some money. Crazy world we're living in! Except for that it was an amazing atmosphere, with fireshows, fireworks, and people wishing for good luck while they lit up lanterns and sent them up into the sky. Such a different and great way to celebrate new years eve. We hang out at Big Blue's bar with Christian & Tanya most of the night, and when I couldn't walk straight anymore, Erik took me home. What a sweetheart!
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| The little mermaid |
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| Drinking buzz buckets to only 400B together. |
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| Christian bought champagne, and I took advantage over it. Thanks CK. |
Koh Tao Video
Wednesday 1st Jan.
In the late afternoon, when we finally got out of bed, we walked to town to get some junkfood. It was litterally a ghost town, very few people was hanging out in different restaurants, and we could tell that everyone was having breakfast, eventhough it was around 4pm. So that made us feel better. If you're allowed to suffer from a big night out, it's absolutely on the 1st of January.
So the day went by with chilling and relaxing. We didn't even see Christian & Tanya that day.
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| Ghost town |
I was tired of doing nothing, so we decided to walk to the south of the island. Koh Tao is only 7 km long and 3-4 km wide, so it's a small island. Walked along the beach as far as possible, until we reached a bunch of expensive and fancy resorts, then we found a little isolated private beach, that we actualy should pay to visit, since we didn't live on one af the resorts. So we didn't stick around for long, before we returned to the backpacker world again, of course without paying!
I was still annoyed over my failed diving lesson, specially because Christian said that it wasn't normal to take people out on the deep water to begin with. So I couldn't help blaming the instructor for my failure. They should have started out slowly, as written on their homepage, and as they said. What they did was wrong and against normal procedures.
We walked by a sign that said that you could try diving in a pool for free, to see if you were interested in diving. So I tried that and didn't have a problem with the equipment there. It felt safe and comfortable. Now Erik took the decision, to walk back to Big Blue and explain the situation for them. Several instructors at Big Blue, said that it's definately not a normal way to start discover scuba diving on. We asked if I could get a one-on-one diving course the next day, and if that didn't went well, then we at least knew that I tried it the right way, and that diving wasn't my kind of sport. It was the only right thing to do, since I was still annoyed over it, and Erik was as well! Now I was excited and of cause nervous, but nervous in a good way. Now I wouldn't feel pushed or rushed into during the skills as fast as others, and I could take it easy and learn it slowly.
Erik already signed up for the open water course, and he was suppose to start in the afternoon, but now he wanted to wait and see if I had better luck this time. So if I managed to do it, we could do the open water course together. We enjoyed dinner with C & T, and in order to be ready for the next day we went to bed early.
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| Trying diving again, but in a safer spot than the ocean |
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| Christian just wanted to look good in the picture, but all they thought about was his leftovers. Haha! |
My instructor was young but experienced, he showed me slowly how to set up the gear, and then we walked out in the shallow water to do the skills. The half and full flooded mask skills are definately the worst, but unfortunately mandatory. The instructor, Oli made me feel safe and relaxed, and after the skills we went for a dive, just starting slowly from the beach and further and further out and down. It was amazing and I really enjoyed every second of it. We dived out to a boat, where we followed a line down, to go on our second dive, maximum depth of 9 meters.
It's a totally other world down there, so amazingly beautiful, awesome and peacefull. I was so thrilled and overwhelmed of happiness, because I managed to do it, and no doubt that I wanted to take the open water course, together with Erik. Yeah, I did it, and actually enjoyed it!!
Erik had been doing exercises meanwhile, and when we meet up again, he announced that Leah (a girl we meet already in China and travelled with for a week), was coming to Koh Tao, to take the open water course the same place as we intended to do it. We signed up for the course, and just as we were hanging out around Big Blue diving restaurant, Leah approached and was already signed up. A perfect timing, and now we could do the course together with her.
The open water course takes 2½ day, and is very challenging. In the afternoon we went to an orientation meeting and watched some diving movies, which got disturbed by power shot downs 3 times, during the 2½ hour. At last the teachers gave up, excused for the terrible power and let us go, without watching all the information movies. We were excited for the following days, and just wanted to have a good and long rest before 2 long days, diving and studying.
Saturday 4th Jan.
We checked out from our guesthouse and moved to Big Blue diving resort, where we could stay for only 100 bath each, since we were doing the open water course there.
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| Thanks to this guy, I finally learned to enjoy diving. |
We checked out from our guesthouse and moved to Big Blue diving resort, where we could stay for only 100 bath each, since we were doing the open water course there.
We met up with our instructor Oli, at 8am, we were 6 in the group, unfortunately Erik was the only guy, except for the instructor. After an orientation about all our equipment and how to set it up, we were ready to go in the water. We started out in the shallow water with a lot of different skills, like regulator skills, more mask skills, than the day before, removal and replacement of BCD west and weightbelt. Then he took us out on deeper water, around 3 meters, and we had to repeat some of the skills and practice some emergency situations under water.
After 4 hours of practicing in the water, we got quite comfortable with almost everything. In the afternoon we had academics for some hours. We really struggled to be concentrated and tried our best not to fall asleep, not because the teaching was boring, but after being in the water and sun all morning!
We couldn't go home and sleep, cause Christian & Tanya invited us to a steak restaurant, and who can reject that offer? We had a really great and tasteful dinner at Hippo's, and after a few glasses of wine, we were ready for bed.. But we had to do some homeworks first. The diving course is really intense, because we need to learn it all in 2½ day. Normally it takes about a week.
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| Reunion with Leah |
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| No complains about this beautiful sunset |
Sunday 5th Jan.
No more studying, and now we only had the fun part left - diving of cause! After lunch we sailed out to a beginner dive site, where we should do our 2 training dives, including more skills. Especially me and Leah hated the mask skills, they're really terrifying and scaring, and this day we had to do it on 9 meters depth. Lucikly we also went for a normal dive after, and the amazing life under water made us think that it was all worth the effort. We had 2 good dives and really enjoyed it.
At night when we got back to Koh Tao, we were in for a treat, so we enjoyed worldclass pizzas at Farango, together with Leah. Unfortunately Oli (our instructor) told us about the mask removal and replacement that we all should accomplish the day after on our dive. That made me sleep really bad and I kept waking up with nightmares about that rediciolious mask thing. I just made it so much worse in my head, than it actually was, but I couldn't help it.
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| Longtail boats along Sairee beach |
Monday 6th Jan.
Waking up way to early, and meeting at Big Blue at 6.30am. We were really excited (and nervous) for our dives today. We had a cameraman with us, so we wanted to look good and act cool. We started out with a 18 meters fundive, just to feel comfortable again. Nice dive with a lot of things to explore. There's some certain rules about diving time and surface time, that we need to follow to avoid decompression sickness and nitrogen narcosis. So after our first dive we had to wait for a few hours, before we were allowed to dive again. Second dive included buoyancy and the mask skill, on 10 meters. Only because I had been thinking too much about it, I paniced while doing the mask skill, but Oli & Erik pulled me down and I finished the skill, that I hope I'm never gonna have to do again. Erik was totally cool and even had the energy to look in the camera and wave. Finally time for fundiving again! We were already back at Big Blue around 11.30 again, and luckily we all passed the tests and skills. Now officially open water divers. In the night we all met up again and watched the professional video together, and luckily we got it copied from Leah who bought it. See the video below, and maybe skip the intro from Big Blue! We actually wanted to celebrate our diver license, but after dinner with Leah, we were all too tired, and didn't bother going out.
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| Colourful fishingboat |
Dive Video
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