Now time to
get a reality check after two weeks of sun and sea. So last time I wrote about
going to SSI’s Open Water Diver course. Well, a lot has happened after that.
First of all, the OWD course was just pure awesomeness. The course lasted three
and a half days (first evening’s couple of hours paperwork and some videos).
At
the first “real” diving day we went through some theories and gears during the
morning and on the afternoon it was already time for our first dives. The next
two days were pure diving with small exercises, like how to clean your mask
underwater or what to do if you are running out of air. I also got a LOT of
pics from our last dive in the OWD course, but since those burned on DVD and I
don’t have a station in my computer at all, I’ll have to wait a while before I
get those pics. However here are some pics that Alex took from our fun dives with Nitrox in my last day's diving from Green rock and Japanese Garden.
So what
happened after the OWD course? Well of course the advanced course. I got so
addicted into diving that I continued my diving career into a next course, and
a next, and a next, and still one more… So now, I am certified Specialty Diver
of SSI with more than 22 logged dives, specialities in deep diving, nitrox
diving and wreck diving. Next steps for me? At least one more special course,
then Stress&Rescue (this one is what I am looking for most right now) and
at least 50 logged dives by the end of this year, all of this combining the
level of “Master Diver” which brings me a lot new opportunities in the future.
Also already decided I want to train myself into Dive Master and possibly SSI’s
instructor in the future. Let’s see where the road takes me ;)
And along
with courses I also did fun dives every day. What is the differences between
fun dives and course dives? On course dives you need to focus on learning certain skills while on
fun dives you can just focus on watching fishes, which at least for me is the
main point. So during my two weeks of diving we spotted so so many things. I
had two absolutely GREAT moments which will stay in my head forever. One of
these is spotting a Bryde’s whale. And actual whale. We were approaching our
day’s diving site while we saw something huge in the nearby and while we got closer
even all the dive masters and instructors were staring with us and then
recognizing that it was an actual whale. Quickly opening all the fish books
they had with they found it was Bryde’s whale but for me the specie wasn’t that
important. But IT WAS AN ACTUAL WHALE!?!?!?! about 8 meters long and sprinkled
the water into air. Of course we had both of our dives in that same site to
spot the whale also in the water but by we got into water it was already gone.
The second huge moment was when I did my deep dive into 40 meters 2 of my
diving buddies. While we were descending down to 40 m, there became a whale
shark hovering around us. I, or my dive buddies, didn’t even notice it first
because we were so concentrating into our first deep dive, so our instructor
had to take us from the hands to show the whale shark which was making circles
around us in about 5 meters distance (normally instructor would tap on her tank
with metal stick but she didn’t want to scare it off). This was a
magnificent (and a bit scary) moment to
watch a whale shark flowing around you. The whale shark was about 3 meters long
and looked super sympathic. We managed to finish our deep dive also although it
took quite a much more air than we had expected (at least my air consumption
MIGHT have had some effects from the encounter of a shark).
Other
species we have met are blue sting ribbon tail-rays (rausku in finnish), sea
snakes, lots of different kinds of crabs and shrimps, troupers, cobies (looks a
lot like small sharks), sea snails, scorpion fish, Queen fishes, parrot fishes,
barracudas of different species (yellow tale, chevron and great); had a moment
of scare when in a night dive a giant barracuda started to follow the light of my
flashlight. In my last dive on the day I left I also found my very first self
spotted ray under a large rock. The diving sites in Koh Tao were really great.
I had a change to visit quite many of those and I can only recommend the place.
Other than
diving I didn’t really do that much in Koh Tao. At evening’s I was super tired
after coming back to land and mostly fall asleep latest at 9 or 10 PM. Then
next morning I needed to be gathering my diving stuff already at 5.30 AM since
boat left at 6 AM. After ending our advanced adventurer course we went to
party. First into Maya beach club, which was nice and cozy, and then into
“biggest night club” of Koh Tao;The Castle. It was a cool place, open air club
with three floor. Drinks there were also okay, same Samsong Cola you get from
anywhere. The music was house music and we danced almost the whole night. However the most funniest activity here was
to follow supersupersuper drunk british tourist and what they were doing;
yelling, fighting, falling, pucking, shouting, fucking, hitting the DJ, hitting
the bar tender, crashing tables, etc. We
counted that in some point there were more people carried out than actually
walking out by their own feet. We left from the party around 6.30 AM but the
party wasn’t even near to the end in that point.
Since after
drinking quite some Samsong Cola there wasn’t even a question of diving, I
decided to went a half-day snorkeling trip which turned out be a great
decision. Some of the reefs are so in shallow waters that you don’t need to
dive to see but snorkeling was enough. It wasn’t also as demanding as diving so
after couple of hours of snorkeling, lots of water and fruits on the boat I
felt I actually had a quite a productive day compared to my normal hangover days.
Fire show on the beach
In my second
last evening we (me, two irish guys, one british guy and one Norwegian girl)
went to see a ladyboy show which was lots of different movie songs (No photos
allowed L
). The show was actually hilarious and we laughed almost the whole time.
During the show the ladyboys picked up couple guys from the audience to give
lap dances. The guys weren’t that thrilled and seemed to feel quite
uncomfortable... Next morning when we were having a breakfast together I heard
story from the next table about one finnish guy who had ended into same hotel
with a ladyboy and didn’t realize “she” was actually “he” before the following
morning…
During my
time here I also got not-so-nice allergic reaction from some insects and here’s
the results…
Luckily local pharmacy lady gave me the medicines immediately and
for the first night sleeping pills :D :D so I don’t scratch my feet. Medicine
worked out and next morning none of this was left anymore.
Anyway now
I am on my way to northern Thailand already. Next destination for me is Chiang
Mai, the second biggest city of Thailand and my travel from Koh Tao to Chiang
Mai last approx. 30 hours. First I took
a ferry from Koh Tao to Chumphon (3 hours), then waited 2 hours for a bus, now
on my way to Bangkok with bus (10 hours) then waiting in Bangkok 3 hours and
then taking a train to Chaing Mai (12 h).
We’ll see what will happen up in the north.
Here's my last night sunset :) Koh Tao - I'll be back!
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