September 16, 2007

Koh Tao (THAILAND)

Koh Tao Update

The past few days have been nothing short of amazing. So far, my mornings have consisted of two dives on the boat (up to a maximum depth of 18m, or 40ft ), lunch is always at a new Thai restaurant with a beautiful girl, the afternoons are either occupied by diving or work in the classroom, and the evenings, well, I don't really remember most of them.

I am now working on my advanced PADI diving certificate along with the Dutch entrepreneur, Ruud, and the German engineer, Lach. It enables us to go down to 30m (100ft), and this is a big deal because it takes me face to face with sharks. Just off the coast of Koh Tao is one of Thailand's best dive attractions: The Pinnacle. On my first dive here, when I was restricted to 18m, we could see massive sharks circling on the ocean floor. One of the smaller sharks even swam up behind us, and by the time my instructor noticed the shark, it was only 2m away from us. It was a massive rush, and fear was the last thing on my mind. Seen underwater, sharks are by far the most graceful creatures, and despite their obvious power and deadly nature, it is clear they want very little to do with divers - too many bubbles and too much gear. So, while I am still terrified of swimming in the surf, diving is something different altogether.

Otherwise, our beach bungalow is still unbearably hot in the evenings and we have visitors every so often. For example, I went in to use the shower this morning, and just above the shower head was the fella shown to the right. He seemed like he meant no one any harm, but he was also a lot bigger than the picture gives him credit for (easily over 18").

The other big problem are the mosquitoes. We have a net over the bed and we light incense in the evenings, but the mozzies still want to get in. The newest solution seems to be spraying the entire net with deet. It probably isn't the healthiest way to go about this, but it lets us sleep at night.