Hey all,
As our trip comes to a close, it’s time for the final blog. We find ourselves possibly stranded on Koh Tao, and as being stuck somewhere goes, it definitely could be worse. (More beautiful beaches and scuba?! No! Anything but that!) As most of you probably know, the situation in Bangkok prevents any possibility of leaving on our scheduled Bangkok- Hong Kong flight. As of now we don’t really know what’s going on but we will find out soon. Hopefully. Enough with the boring technical stuff. On to Scuba!
We arrived in Koh Tao a few days ago and had a day to just relax after a lot of travelling. The next day we watched our orientation video. A little schooling the next morning and then BAM! we were jumping in the pool with all our gear on to do some practice. The next morning we had some more school and then that afternoon we headed out to sea! Unfortunately, it was really windy and there were huge waves. The water was not ideal conditions for a first dive. But we geared up and jumped in anyway. We all grabbed on to the anchor line and slowly followed that down, descending into the depths of the ocean (about 15 meters… pretty deep). You could only see for about a meter or two in front of you and the current was very strong. After 20 minutes we slowly made our way to the surface, with a safety stop 5 meters from the surface to prevent decompression sickness (basically just allowing the excess nitrogen in your body to leave you in peace). We had a break on the boat and moved to another location to try our luck there. It was shallower and supposedly more protected so it should have been calmer, right? Not so much. The current was extremely strong (stronger, even) and did not make for a fun diving experience. But the next day we went out again. Luckily, the wind wasn’t too strong and blue sky was seen for the first time in a long time. The conditions were infinitely better: the water calm, the colors present, the abilitly to see one another also present. It made for several good dives. The sun even peeked out during our break so everyone sun bathed on the top of the boat. We may or may not dive today (a few people have to do some makeup dives) but as you can’t fly after diving and we are in a sort of might fly might not fly limbo, we didn’t want to risk it. But hopefully we will all come back scuba certified and ready to check out the waters around where we live, whether it be ocean, lake, pool, bathtub, or what have you.
So with that we bid adeiu to wonderful Southeast Asia. Hello home, hello culture shock, hello friends and family that we have missed terribly.
See you soon!!
much love,
Team Seasia.
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