Ko Tao Diving

We got to Ko Tao around 10AM this morning and got the free taxi service to Big Blue Divers dive shop. We signed up for 2 fun dives, reserved our ferry/bus back to Bangkok, cooled off for a bit, then got on the boat for our dive at 1:00PM.

The diving on Ko Tao is very different than on Salang Beach in Malaysia. Ko Tao is konwn to be one of the cheapest places to dive in teh world and at $25 a dive and free dorms, it sure seemed like it. Many people we met back in Malaysia got certified at Ko Tao, or did fun dives there. The number of people hanging out at the dive shop, which also had a restaurant, was about the same number of people as the whole population of Salang. There were also a bunch of Japanese people on Ko Tao as well. I met two people from Saitama working on their dive master certification - Kanako and Katsuki.

The first site was a place called Laem Thiene. It took about 45 minutes to get there and we got a quick briefing along the way from our dive master, Tom. I've heard a few times that the first time after you get open water certified is the hardest because you're so worried about getting everything right, like hooking up your regulator correctly, making sure your air is on and that there's enough for your dive, what you do if your air fails, making sure you have your suit on before you enter the water ... but it wasn't so bad. Tom was really cool and patient and reminded us a lot about everything we forgot.

When we got in the water, the visibility wasn't very good becasue it had rained a few days before and there were small particles in the coean everywhere, but when we got close enough to the coral, you forget and it's just awesome again. We saw most of the same fish as we did in Malaysia, but Tom had different signs for some fo the fish. At one point, he motioned swinging a bseball bat. Josie really wanted to see a turtle, so I thought it was a sign for a homerun and that he had found a turtle. It turned out that he found a "batfish."

The best part of these dives was swimming through small caves. That was so COOL! There would be a small, pitch-black cave at the bottom of a wall of coral and as we approached it, a faint glow from the opening on the other side would light our way and then we'd emerge out on the other side at the bottom of a funnel of coral. It was crazy becasue these opening were sometimes just barely wide enough to pass through so you'd often hear the *KLANK* of your air tank hit the top of the cave. We had about 60 minutes of bottom time for the first dive.

Since that last dive, I've managed to control my breathing a lot better (maybe because I'm not sick this time) and maintain my neutral bouyancy a lot better too, although I did smack into a wall of coral a few times. I think they key is to exhale slowly. I thin kthe manual says that on every other page. I also tried streamlining myself by holding my elbows like I'm cradling myself after seeing something really horrible. I saw Mazlan at Fisherman's and Tom here at Big Blue do it, so I figured I'd give it a shot. It's not as easy as it looks when you're only 6 inches away from the seafloor and are desperately trying not to hit it.

The second dive was at a place called Green Rock. It's a small pile of rocks with more swin-through caves, but even narrower. All the other boat dives I've done were the big-step water entry, but this time I did a front flip entry. It's a 3/4 front flip where you land on your tank so it breaks the water before you do. I bet it must have loked totally awesome ... and pretty clumbsy too.

This dive's visibility was much better than the first dive. On this dive, we saw a moral eel hiding under a rock. Tom grabbed my BCD (scuba vest) and dragged me in. I didn't see it at first, but then these white eyes just stared, glowing in the dark and the eel's form started taking shape. We also saw this thing called a "crown of Thorns," which is a type of starfish that secretes an acidic solution that destroys coral as it moves across it.

When our dive is done, we have to ascend and stay at about 5 meters from the surface for 3 minutes in order to get rid of excess nirogen in our lungs to avoid decompression sickness ... I think. This was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Five meters above us was the light from the surface, as far as we could see around us and below us was this crystal clear blue turquoise with sunlight rays gently swaying back and forth. In the middle of all this were 8 divers just hovering around for 3 minutes perfectly level. It's an amazing thing to see. After surafcing, we realized that we had drifted from the exit point and had to swim 10 minutes back to the boat.

On the way back to shore, I was talking to Katsuki and heard more about his dive master training. Apparently, his plan is to get certified and then maybe open his own shop in Okinawa ... perhaps I'll go join him.

Initially, we'd plan to crash for a night and take the morning ferry back to Bangkok, but there were no morning boats becasue the government had issued a city-wide curfew and morning bus/boat would get us back after. So we took the 10PM night boat back to the mainland. I rinsed off in the outdoor shower, filled out my divelog, had dinner, then took the taxi back to the pier. Now it's it's a 16-hour journey back to Bangkok.