Scuba. That's where, and it's bloody marvelous!
It started with books, classrooms and a swimming pool, which, to be honest, did not float my boat (boom boom). It got better though on our first dive in the sea to a grand depth of 6m! Breathing under water is a bit strange at first and cleaning your mask when it mists up is a nuisance but it's worth it for the feeling of weightlessness and to see the weird and wacky sea life. After four more dives to a depth of 18m and an exam we were qualified open water divers and officially hooked (boom boom) on Scuba. So much so that we signed up to do the advanced course!
The 'Deep' dive was the first advanced dive and we went to 30m where 'nitrogen narcosis' kicks in. It sounds serious but it's harmless and actually quite funny - well, I found it hilarious and I giggled my head off with 30m of water above me. John was a bit more relaxed, he found it a bit like sitting in the pub after a few bevvies.
This was followed by the 'Navigation' dive. We had to swim in a square using our compass and find our instructor, Perry, who congratulated up and then sent us off on our first unsupervised dive! We learned that John's excellent sense of direction doesn't work underwater so I was in charge since I'm a demon with a compass!
Next up was the 'Night' dive. As you may have guessed this dive is at night... We watched the sunset and then down we went. I was very nervous before hand but it was so exciting. You can see fairly well well with the moonlight and everything is much more colourful when you shine your torch on it. John got particularly excited every time we saw a barracuda make a kill and used up all his air.
We decided to take a camera with us on the 'Naturalist' and 'Buoyancy' dives. On the 'Naturalist' dive they teach you how to identify fish etc and took us to a beautiful dive site (my favorite so far) where we got see so many fish and coral and we got some excellent photo's. The 'Buoyancy' dive aims to improve your buoyancy so you use less weights and air. This was the most fun because we had to do some funny stuff like hover upside down and swim through peoples legs! Once again, we got some excellent photos.
So, after spending all our money, meeting loads of new friends and nine awesome days of scuba we are officially advanced open water divers! We made a speedy exit from Koh Tao though before we spent all our money on fun dives or decided to give up everything and train to become scuba instructors!
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