Back To School With PADI

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  Koh Tao, Thailand
Wednesday, August 25, 2010

First things first - we are now fully qualified PADI open water divers!!!! Woooooop!!

We caught the sleeper train from Bangkok down to Chumporn (what a clever design they are!! seats that turn into bunk beds!) and as we only had a fan carriage ticket it was stifling hot, but bearable.  Think my clothes were starting to grow legs though.  After that it was a bus and ferry over to Koh Tao, before a bit of an accomodation disaster....long and boring story, but it was sorted eventually and 16 hours after we had left Bangkok we were at our bungalow ready to start the open water course the next day!

Day one was all classroom based, learning the science behind scuba essentially and a lot of dive protocols - hand signals, buddy checks etc etc.  Call me sad but I did actually enjoy this; it was nice to have to chance to use my brain and get stuck into something new! Yep, geek!  This was also our chance to get to know our instuctors Guy and Tina and our fellow novices; Oliver, Harry, Pilar and Gunilla from Austria, Kevin from Holland, Aussie Anthony and a couple from right up the road (relatively speaking!) in Geordieland - Chris and Susan.  They turned out to be a cool bunch of people and it was good fun to be hanging out in part of a group again.

Day two was painful 8.30 start and a morning of classroom stuff again, getting our heads round the dreaded dive planner tables! They take a bit of getting used to but aren't as complicated as they seem once you've got the hang of it...which is worth doing as they basically help you not become a squashed coke can by diving too long/too deep/too often.  I think poring over silly spreadsheets in my previous life as an FO may have helped me personally, but it was at this point I felt in complete awe of the guys who weren't doing the course in their native language!  That afternoon we finally got to get our hands on the equipment, spending a good hour learning how to set up and use all of the gear which was almost like setting up for a space shuttle mission! After lumping it onto our backs (the rucksack will never feel as heavy again!) it was time to give breathing underwater a whirl!! We spent over two hours in the pool, and I must say it felt bizarre at first - completely unnatural.  We soon got used to it and Tina ran us through all skills we could ever possibly need (Bangkok Women Really Are Fellas, mask clear, regulator recovery, buddy breathing, out of air - tank turned off - yikes, etc etc) and a few more that I am convinced she made up to make us look stupid - taking off the tank and sitting on it with hands in the air for instance!! We managed them all, though I was having issues with leaky masks (I have a small head!!) and Mel shot out of the water like a champagne cork the first time we tried midwater buoyancy control!  But it was all good fun and we couldn't wait to try everything out in the ocean, where if you get it wrong you can't just pop up and swear at each other....


Day three came with a mildly better 9am start, and we had to complete our final exam (Mel's colleagues would have a fit with the exam conditions; we were in the bar crowded round a tiny table chatting away to each other about the questions!), learn how to compass navigate and do a 200m swim test...shouldn't they have done that before they sunk us in the pool?! Anyway, after a hearty lunch at Zest where we all bricked it about actually going 12m down we got on the boat that afternoon pretty much fit and ready.  The first thing we learnt was setting up your kit is a darn sight harder on a rolling deck.  After a final briefing we flopped ungracefully into the water at Mango Bay and decended to the sand below.  Wow.  Oh wow.  Wow wow wow wow woooooooowwwwwwww!  Stunning. We could see so clearly (about 20m vis, for those who know diving) and the reef was teeming with fishy fish off all shapes, sizes, colours and varieties -we saw Angelfish, Groupers, Butterfly Fish, Bannerfish....there is just too many to list! The reef itself is gorgeous enough, all different formations and colours of coral, lots of hideyholes for shy fish and rays....brilliant.  it's like being on a different planet.  If you ever get the chance, do it!!! The whole experience was just so peaceful, no noise, no crazy zipping about; the divers just drift along because frantic swimming simply does not work, and even the fish don't seem to be in any hurry.  I thought it might have been claustrophobic but there is a great sense of freedom; being pretty much weightless, no communication other than hand signals and seeing your own breath come out as bubbles...it's all just so chilled.  Our instructor Tina helped with that...we discovered she is bonkers but she approached the whole thing in a very laid back manner and helped us all just have fun and a good laugh....not least when we had to run through our skills on dive 2 - Mel, simulating an out of air situation, asked for Tina's alternative air source only for her to give the finger and turn away before killing herself laughing! The whole dive experience was just top notch, we did 2 45min dives at about 12 metres and loved every second.  The whole group was buzzing on the boat afterwards, and we went for a couple of beers and dinner together with daft grins on our faces all night.

On day 4 we met at a simply ridiculous time of 7am ready for dives 3 and 4, at White Rock and Twins respectively. Now if dive 1 and 2 were fab (as Kerrie would say!) then these two were astonishing. We went deeper, down to about 18m which is the max for open water divers, and met a whole bunch of other creatures including cleaner shrimps, eels, huuugggeee groupers and tigerfish and some strange crab things that we couldn't recognise in the book later.  We were also filmed by a videographer and watched the video in the bar after - it's brill (not as good as Darren would do, but hey!) and now we have to work out whether we can afford it to show you guys! Kaz & Hels, our strange but true moment of the day came when we were all surfacing from our third dive and Tina started singing "Business Time"!!! She's a Conchords fan!  The only downside to the whole day was that I was terrifically and horrifically seasick on the journey between the two dive sites.  The whole nine yards; brekkie in reverse and I thought my entire digestive system was going to become fish food.  Not as bad as poor Harry, who had been sick the moment we boarded and by the end was too ill even to do the group video finale....sorry Harry, I have every sympathy but the alternative ending with you is hilarious!  Anyway, Tina virtually forced us both into kit in between bouts of violent sickness and chucked us overboard, telling us we'd feel better in the water.  She was right, but only after an I spent an interesting five minutes wondering how to vomit through my mouthpiece and trying to work out the hand sign for get lost and leave me alone, I'm dying.  By the way, it's not really possible to slap someone underwater - believe me I tried!

Despite this, diving was an awesome experience and we're so glad we shelled out for it.  Definitely going to do more as we go through Malaysia and Aus...as much as the budget lets us.  We loved it, and it's opened up a whole new world.  We also really enjoyed the social side, and had great fun with the group both in and out of the water; whenever the two groups passed each other underwater we all behaved like complete lunatics, manically waving and pointing and it was good to share our experience over food and a drink or two.  I guess with all that responsibility you have for each other you become pretty close pretty quick! Sitting at a beach bar on a table for ten reminded me of those old Smith/Wright/Damms holidays! Although those classroom videos were the cheesiest thing you can imagine, we now get the PADI motto - "Go places, meet people, do things!" Hahaha! Brilliant!

PS: For those of you who wanted to know - yes we did meet Nemo!!! A little family of Nemos in fact, with a mummy, daddy and baby.  In fact, we met pretty much the entire cast of Nemo - Dory, French cleaning shrimp, Gil, Flo and her sister...no sharks though - shame! Maybe next time.

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Mango Bay, first dive site	Mango Bay again	The other team surface!	Our group!
And again!	I promised the guys I would put all these on!	Arse shot!	Explaining Sound Of Music = confused Austrian
Kevin's king prawn!	After dive 4, qualified divers one and all!!

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