Advanced Open Water Certified!

Merry Christmas from Koh Tao! That’s right, I came back. I am so obsessed with Scuba diving that I decided to get my advanced open water. I know I say a lot of stuff, but I’m really serious about eventually becoming an instructor, and hopefully making a triumphant and permanent return to Koh Tao. The advanced course included 5 dives over 2 days. After meeting my group, which consisted of 4 boys and me, we filled out paperwork, went through the book and got to it. Our first dive was a 30m dive, to become deep certified. I had heaps of problems equalizing my ears, so the boys went off while I swam around with an instructor (who, thankfully, was also a girl). I saw the largest fish I have ever seen ( a grouper) and heaps of other really cool animals you don’t get at 18m. I was the only one to have troubles with this dive, and since I was the only girl, you could only imagine how much it pissed me off, but I got over it, and was ready for the next one. The next dive focused on Navigation underwater. Its tricky, since everything kind of looks the same and theres really no landmarks. After a descent, its really quite easy to get lost. We rocked it, and I was able to navigate with my buddies no problem. The final dive of the day was a night dive, which was fucking brilliant. Armed with only flashlights to see, we swam around. When you turn off the flashlight, the plankton reacts to movement and lights up, being easily, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. We also played some fish god, shining lights on little fish to watch massive barracudas eat them. MUNCH!

The last 2 dives were multilevel, and a fish id dive, but they were really just us swimming around and having fun. This class focused a little more on how to plan our own dives, and the last 2 we didn’t have an instructor, so made us independent divers.

Spending Christmas on Koh Tao was amazing~but I’ll write about that when I get to my next point~Koh Phi Phi! Night ferry ahoy!

Happy Holiday,
ErinJ

Scuba Scuba Scuba

Woot! I am officially a PADI licensed Open Water diver! I’m not going to lie, I’ve never given much thought to scuba diving before, nor was I even sure I was going to like it. However, now I’m obsessed. Scuba diving was something that came really naturally to me for whatever reason. It was also a ridiculously fun class to take. Kind of like school, but way, way better. The first day, we rolled into our first theory class. It was a fairly large class (Which has its advantages and disadvantages, but I ultimately chose it so I could meet people) . As we went around the classroom and introduced where we were from, I met up with somebody from UCONN. It was very exciting, and him, me and another American girl quickly became fast friends. The next day we learned skills in the pool, and were mostly getting used to breathing underwater. Your natural reaction covered in H20 is to hold your breath, but if you do that scubaing, you will die. This was a very long section, but it was interesting, and it was cool getting used to the equipment. We then went to another classroom theory session, which is kind of boring, but seeing as there is a written test you have to do it. The next day was our first DIVE. It was SO CRAZY COOL. It was actually kind of peaceful, floating around fishes and stuff. Its weird, cause I really don’t like fish that much, looking at them kind of grosses me out, but not underwater. We did two dives that day, and I am simply obsessed. That afternoon was followed by a really long classroom session, but our last one, where we took the final exam. Yesterday was our last few dives, where we were able to go deeper (18m~max depth for an open water cert) and saw sting rays and corals and schools of barracudas and it was epic. That night we got our temporary certificates, and celebrated as a class.
Insert tomfoolery and shenanigans of a German persuasion?
I woke up this morning and played with the idea of staying and getting my advanced cert, but decided to go to Ko Pha-Ngan for a few days and come back for it next week. I’m really excited for the advanced, and think I want to work hard and save up, and eventually be a dive instructor. Imagine being able to do this every day, on a beach in paradise? They’re living the dream here. I wish it didn’t cost so much, but I think I’ll be able to manage it. Maybe by the time I’m 25? New life direction!
I met so many ridiculously fun people in the class, and it was kind of like college. We all lived in the resort and ran around, eating meals and drinking on the beach together. I would highly recommend it, and even though I stayed at a huge facility (Ban’s diving) it was super professional, and turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Short on pictures, but huge on experiences!
Patience and faith,
ErinJ