We took a bus from Bangkok to the mainland of Thailand and then catamaran to the island of Koh Tao. I didn’t do so well on the catamaran with seasick meds. Yikes! Koh Tao is the cheapest place in the world to get your scuba license and I’ve wanted to do that since I got a taste at the Great Barrier Reef on Pac Rim. The resort we stayed at was right on the ocean and had an amazing view. The Thai people ran the restaurant but for the most part, the dive shop and instructors were English speakers. Many were from England and Australia. Our instructors name was Sonia who is from England. We were able to start classes the day we arrived and from there set off for the sea. I was so excited! The open water course consists of 4 dives. We did mostly morning dives, which start around 6:30am. It’s not exactly what you think of for vacation but I was loving it.
The most exciting thing that happened during our open water training was our last day out. The nice thing about the open water is that they make a video of you on your last day so we were preparing to be on camera all day. We go down on the first dive site and all of sudden there is a SHARK!!! Now normally I would have been a bit freaked but no fear it was a WHALE SHARK! These sharks don’t have teeth and only eat plankton. So I was resting easy and soaking it in that I was seeing a whale shark swim right past me! It was about 6 meters and I could have reached out and touched it. It was amazing! Needless to say my video is awesome with me swimming with a whale shark!!!!!!
During this dive, Emily was sick so neither her nor Luke was able to finish their open water with me. They finished the next say and I went on to get my advanced license. This would consist of a deep water dive (30m), navigation, computer training, and a NIGHT DIVE!!! Everything was awesome and they saved the night dive for last. I was super excited but pretty nervous. In my dive group I had met another couple from England. Polly and Nick were so much fun. We spent a lot of time together diving and hanging out. Of course I continued to be the 3rd wheel as per usual. (Lots of cute guys at the resort but none worth mentioning) Anyway, the night dive was awesome!! So interesting and beautiful what the ocean is like at night.
We were able to spend Christmas and New Years abroad this year and luckily we had so much fun that we handled it quite nicely. Of course no one likes to be away from their family during the holidays but thankfully we had a great trip.
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