Day 23

SCUBA 2

Wake up, pack, grab some fruit with yoghurt and muesli and head to the dive centre - you know the drill. After filling up both my water bottles (our hostel doesn't give free water) we head up to the classroom for the start of day 2 of our open water diving course. Originally our exam was meant to be after this classroom session but having told Mika that I only had half the content, he said I could study it over lunch and we could do it at end of the day.

We go over more theory and rules of diving, which was a bit harder for me today as I wasn't able to see the content beforehand but still we persevered and it made the content that I had already seen alot more clear as it wasn't just a block of text on my phone. The content today was more focused on decompression, and understanding that the deeper you dive the longer you have to stop at different levels on the ascent to balance your nitrogen levels in your body and blood stream. We then have a very early lunch about 11am where I went back to the same restaurant as yesterday with Claudia this time and I ordered some spring rolls and a fresh coconut whilst going over my brand new content. The spring rolls were tasty but the coconut was even better - being able to drink the water straight out the shell then eat the flesh with a spoon whilst sitting next to the beautiful beach under a palm tree was pretty sweet.

Content rushed through and food devoured, we headed back and grabbed our boxes of gear and headed to the small boat with the rest of the people going for an afternoon dive, to the bigger boat where we took a short trip from Sairee Reef where we dived yesterday to Twins Pinnacle, which was just off of Nang Yuan Island - directly next to Koh Tao. After some water and biscuits from the ship, we prepare our gear and do our buddy checks before stepping off the boat into the water. It was similar to yesterday where first we went over the same skills, including clearing the regulator of water, clearing our mask of water, and sharing air with your dive buddy if they run out. This time we also added removing our buoyancy compensator vest and a self rescue. Highlight of this was seeing a crab that looked like a rock that we were doing our skills next to that we had to move away from rather quickly as it turned out its fairly poisonous.

We hop back on the boat and have a small break before changing tanks and going for a real dive. I forgot to mention we also had another Finnish dude with us who was completing his dive masters course so was helping out too. In the water the first half went quite well, my buoyancy was fairly controlled and my equalisation wasn't too bad (my damn left ear just doesn't equalise for some reason). We swam past lots of coral and schools of fish - it'd be hard to name them but looking a couple meters to your side and seeing hundreds of fish swim together was pretty cool. The main issue is that whilst learning you focus so much on breathing and buoyancy and equalisation that sometimes you forget to take in your surroundings.

On the way back though I just couldn't equalise my damn left ear so had to spend a while ascending and descending before it felt even okay ish. This also took alot of focus off my breathing and buoyancy so I was alot less in control. I'm not sure how deep we dove but the max we were allowed is 12 meters so I'm sure it wasn't far off. We eventually surface and my ear returns to normal but there was definitely some residual pain which probably means damage...

We boat back to the dive centre where we take a multiple choice 50 question test. It went decent but some of the wordings were a bit difficult to wrap my head around. After Mika scanned through each test in about 10 seconds, it's clear he was doing it from memory which was quite funny. I got 2 or 3 wrong on the test which isn't too bad - it's a pass (I think?).

I meet back with Alfie where he picks me up on his scooter and we head to the West side of the island (we were staying on East) - only taking about 10 minutes. I hate being on the back as you have no control but it is what it is. We park up at Ao Tanote Beach which has one of the best cliff diving spots in Thailand. In the middle of this bay lies this large rock (I forgot to take a picture!) where a short swim through the most rapid water I've seen in Thailand - brings you to a small scramble before a rope needs to be climbed before getting to the top. Getting out of the water was definitely the hardest bit as the rush of the waves push you away from the rock and if you time it incorrectly might throw you into another. The rope climb wasn't too bad but at the top I met Austin (from the USA) and Anshul (from India) where it was all our first time on this rock. Poor Anshul had taken 3 attempts to get to the top and had left a small trail of blood from the scrapes.

After catching our breathes from the swim, we chatted for a bit before Austin took the lead and made the first jump, I followed 2nd and Anshul went 3rd. The jump says online anywhere between 5 and 12m but I'll go with roughly 10. It was scary taking the leap but that's really what its all about. After hitting the water I surfaced and was super happy with the landing. We swim around and climb back up, this time chatting for even longer before making the jump again and swimming back to shore before sunset.

We join Alfie at the restaurant on the beach and the 4 of us chat for a couple hours whilst eating some food. They were both really cool guys and I hope to see them both again. Me and Alfie scooter back to Sairee, grab another roti before I sat down to write before heading to bed.

Another sorry for the massive lack of pictures today, being in the water all day doesn't lend itself to taking alot of pictures.Read more