The 2nd, as expected, was again overcast. We packed our belongings, bid farewell to Emma and Michelle, and the 3 of us headed for the pier to our boat to the mainland. The rest of the day is best not blogged, as we have already blocked it from our minds. A horrible day of swapping from boat to bus to mini bus and lots of waiting on the roadside in between (Lucy coped very well!) Arriving in the middle of the night, it was at least some comfort to be greeted by our friends Toby, Lewis and Steve with a nice apartment already sorted for the 6 of us and cold beers in the fridge.
From the 3rd to the 6th we completed our openwater diving course on Karon Beach, Phuket. A friend of Toby’s, the wonderful Joel, had accepted the fateful task of teaching us to dive... a decision I bet he regretted at times. It was a great few days, with just the 3 of us in the class and not a swimming pool in sight we had definitely made the right decision not going to Koh Tao. On our first day, we managed to get into the sea for some skills and a 40 minute dive, most people would still be in the swimming pool at this point. After a hard day of diving came the even harder afternoons of lazing around on the beach, the odd game of bat and ball, or Frisbee and burying Toby in the sand kept us entertained. Day two was similar to day one, we all found it quite hard to equalise the pressure in our ears today though which made things slightly more stressful but we managed and it was so worth it for all of the amazing fish we saw at the local reef, coming and back and discussing which fish we had seen in the sunshine was loads of fun!! The evening wasn’t as enjoyable as although we went out for a lovely meal we also had homework due in the next day so we all sat in our living room in our pj’s and crammed it all in as quickly as possible!
Day three of our course we had to mark our homework and do our test to see how much we had listened to the theory stuff – we all passed with flying colours and could go out for our third dive joined by Toby and Lewis who hadn’t dived in years! After a few rounds of thumb war at the bottom (Zoe used dirty tactics of trying to remove my air to win!) we were off to the reef for our longest dive so far – well for us anyway, Lewis hadn’t put his mask on properly which meant he was constantly having to clear it of the water and then his air ran out!! So he bailed out and let the rest of us enjoy the world under the sea. It is so amazing seeing what lives down there and although i thought i would be terrified it is so incredible and takes your breath away that there is no time to be scared!
Day four we went to Kata beach to go out on a boat for our final 2 dives, we were all much more confident today and this made for a much longer, deeper and amazing diving! Joel was a legend and brought out his underwater camera to record our antics under the sea (see Facebook or email us for the links) which meant we could capture the moment Zoe was looking forward to since the diving course began; finding Nemo! At the end of the last dive Joel took us to a massive anemone which was full of about 10-15 clown fish – WOW! What a way to finish our course!
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