Scuba Diving at Koh Tao
So I finally went and got Open Water (OW) scuba certified. It was Saskia's birthday so her, Jacey, and I made the trip to Ban's Diving Resort on Koh Tao. To save money we booked night busses to Koh Tao (9 hours and a ferry) and that ended up being a pretty miserable experience all the way round though the booking was about $30 US round trip so that made it worth it compared to flying.
On the way there I barely slept on the damn bus, the emergency light was right above me so I had no darkness and I kept waking up, I slept awfully. Then we were dropped off at the pier 2 hours before the ferry actually came and so we had to literally wait outside in the dark (6am) for two hours. I slept on a bench. Then take the 2 hour ferry to Koh Tao. On the way back it was better, we only waited 45 minutes on the dock before the busses came to get us which was fine because I needed food anyway. Then it was just 9 hours on a bus which was really honestly boring and exhausting somehow given that we just sat there and slept part way of 9 hours. But still when I got home I was exhausted.
The actual diving course was pretty cool. Bans Diving Resort cost 9800 baht (little less than $300 USD) and we got everything required to get scuba certified, videos, quizzes, instructor, pool, and all the equipment and transportation for pool instruction and 4 dives. The bonus was that we also got to stay at the resort for free with our certification cost which was awesome. We stayed there Thursday morning to Monday morning, so 4 days for free. The room wasn't nice by any means, it didn't even have a shower the bathroom just was the shower (we had to keep the toilet paper in the room or it got wet from the shower) and there was no AC (700 baht extra ($21) per night for AC WHAT!?) and we only had one oscillating fan, but it was still free so that's good enough for me!
Saskia is Dutch and her native language is Dutch, however Jacey and I only speak english so we actually were able to request a Dutch instructor who would teach in english but be available in case Saskia had any questions in Dutch so she could understand better. Our instructor was named Emiel and he was really nice and knowledgeable and actually told us that Ban's is the largest certifier of OW divers in the world. 1 in 10 divers in the entire world are certified at that location alone. That was really amazing to me!
Anyway the days were long and full of work. We had classroom and video sessions, time to practice skills in the pool, and two days of sea dives. I was exhausted most of the time at the end of the day and went to bed really early because the course started at 8am and the dives were several hours.
Saturday was our first dive day and we did two dives off the same boat just in different locations. We were fully responsible for all of our gear and it was really cool. I was sea sick the entire time and managed to throw up a lot that day. Thank god for Matt's advice and help or else I wouldn't have made it through the day. The dives were fine, 12m or about 40 feet that day but I was just thankful to get off the boat. I got a motion sickness pill but I think I puked it up before it was able to do me any good.
The second dive day, Sunday, I was much better because I didn't eat at all before going on the boat. I wasn't nearly as sea sick and I didn't throw up once. The only downside is that I was famished the entire time and just ate tons of the pineapple that was provided on the boat. The dives today were 18m or 60 feet and were our maximum certification depth for the OW course. The first dive went well but there was a bunch of frenzy getting back onto the boat. Emiel told us we were going to a different dive site than would normally be used on an OW course but that a call had been made on the radio and everyone was going there. Earlier we had talked about Whale Sharks by the island but we were terribly out of season, but I knew that was what we were going to try to go see because there is nothing else big enough that all the boats in the morning would change route and go over there. I was further proven right when he said he wouldn't tell us what it was since he didn't want to jinx it.
We got to the dive site and there were TONS of boats. We suited up quickly and Emiel said to make sure to stick very close to him since it was going to be chaos under the water. He was very right. There was somewhere between 50-100 people down there and more snorkeling or watching from the surface and boats. We followed the crowd and I got to see just a giant tail swimming away in the water. A bit defeated we continued our dive as normal looking at sea life and stuff. Towards the end of our dive though it came back and there it was a Whale Shark (not a whale or a shark funny enough) and we got it on camera! It was such a cool experience and it came back a second time as well. What's crazy though is that you can't hear fish swim underwater like you can hear things on land and all the sudden you'll turn and there it is! And it's huge! So you have a distinct feeling of having just been snuck up on haha.
The best shot from the camera of the size of the whale shark. I felt so cool being able to carry the camera underwater.
Everything worked out and in the end we were scuba certified, Saskia turned 20, and everyone had a good weekend.
I really really enjoyed the dives (I just hate boats they make me sick). I was by far the most controlled and able diver in the group though. Saskia wanted to bring her go-pro on the last dive but he said the only person with enough control was me so he said I could take it or him but that he needed her to focus on her equipment and buoyancy underwater more. I made sure to take tons of shots of them all swimming and get cool fish in view of the camera so that Saskia would have a good video to take home. I felt bad but was also really excited to carry around a Gopro underwater since I don't have one.
I really love to see all of the fish and coral and like sea urchins, sea slugs, sea cucumbers, and everything else that is under the water. The teacher was really good about pointing things out to us and then telling about them on the surface. I'm really excited to continue this (I might try to focus on shore dives so I don't have to go in damn boats) and I think I'll be diving in Bali at the end of October and in Koh Phi Phi with Matt at the end of November and of course in Honduras with Matt in February. I am really glad that I was able to overcome my fears about this and am excited to see where this leads me with Matt since I know this is something he really loves. :)
Special shout out to Matt for pushing me to overcome my fears, helping me with tons of tips and support, and giving me someone to compete with underwater:)
Here is the video that Saskia put together of our trip to Koh Tao!