Day 87 - And now, then end is near, it's time to face, the dive site

As planned here in Thailand, I've done my PADI open water certification which allows me to dive unattended with a buddy to 18m/60ft which took 3 days – one of theory, and two of practical with knowledge reviews in-between. It was hard work but pretty fun, and teaches you the basics of recreational shallow diving. In doing the dives I met some nice fellow Brits who've been helping keep me company here in Koh Chang. One chap Alex (ex footballer, now stone-mason), from Oxford, was doing the course with me, but have never dived before, his friend David from Peterborough (already a qualified diver), and their friend Roger (who couldn't swim). Was nice to have someone English to go through everything with, and we were dive-buddies for our entire training period.

On board the dive boat. Alex in the green shorts, and David on the right holding the railing above.
 

We both past with flying colours, and enjoyed it so much we both decided to stay and further our scuba-education by doing the advanced course. This would be more challenging, as there are many more technical manoeuvres, processes and safety practices to master. The course came with yet another whopping textbook (got to carry two of the buggers back now), which we had to study and pass knowledge review exams before each practical exercise.

The course took two days and included 5 dives; buoyancy control (learning to make yourself effectively weightless underwater & manoeuvring skills), navigation(plotting a course, setting headings and using a compass effectively), night-dive (diving at night), deep dive (diving to 30m/100ft to do arithmetic and test the effects of nitrogen narcosis on our bodies/minds), and search & recover (search patterns to locate and object, then use inflatable bags to float it to the surface).

Some were more fun than others, but all was thoroughly enjoyable, and great experience for a future where I intend to do much more diving! The instructors were great – always there to help and real good laugh. Today we are applying our newly acquired skills in our first fun-dive as qualified scuba divers! So I can now dive unattended to 30m/100ft, where 31 atmospheres of pressure is applied on your body – far out! :)

Dive sites here typically look like this – small island that is surrounded by reefs and life underwater. Crystal clear waters, with visibility ranging from 10-20m typically (good!).


So have basically spent the last 6 days on a boat diving around the numerous reefs and rocky islands out here. Seen a pretty vast array of underwater life, swum though schools of thousands of tropical fish (my favourite bit!), and made some new friends doing it.

This has of course been at the cost of not really seeing Bangkok - but after talking to a lot of people here who've been, it doesn't sound like a great place to be alone – more of a group thing, and only for the night life. No one seems to have much nice to say about the city itself... I have to travel through it to get a plane back to Ho Chi Minh, as I no longer have time to spend 2/3 days getting there by bus. So tomorrow I'm getting the bus to Bangkok, spending one nigh there, then flying the next day direct to HCM to meet the lads. Will be back in the UK Monday afternoon, probably in a pretty bad state of jetlag, and ready to start reintegrating back in to blighty life.

A sample of what I'm leaving behind here – so tempted just to stay!


Will do a summary entry either between travelling, or once I'm back, as the rest of my time here is pretty much going to be travelling around... Sleeping pills at the ready! :)

Am looking forward d to seeing everyone again, and catching up on the past quarter of a year of your lives!

Lukas update: He had finished with Campot, Cambodia, and has been doing his usual exploration (on a motor bike again) in search of photo worthy subject mater. I think he's done pretty well – check his latest work here. Today he should have made his way from Cambodians capital Phenom Phen over to join Petr in Vietnam, where Peter has been doing tours around the south of the country and finally getting to see all those museums we failed to get into when we were last there.