The wedding and first few days on Koh Tao

Well you’ve seen the pictures already, now its time for a bit of story telling. I arrived on Koh Samui at Thursday afternoon after a pretty long trip and me skipping the queue for immigration in Bangkok. As soon as we got out of the plane it started raining so hurry to the airport lounge. It took quite a while for our luggage to turn up, but fortunately everything was there and my driver to the hotel was there as well. After a much needed shower and some unpacking I was ready to go to the hen’s and bucks party at the Napasai resort where Katie and Ben were staying. It should be doable on foot, so I set of in the dark with my map and started walking. After 15 min or so I was knee deep in water and knew I got lost. I also felt a bit scared of the Bilharzia worms who might want to enter my body now they had the chance… so I went back to the hotel again, changed again and got a taxi over. It was a lovely evening where I got to meet loads of friends and family from both sides of the wedding party. Since I had had a long day (36 hours or so with no sleep) I decided to head home not too late. A nice long sleep, a bit of exploring in town and buying some sunscreen (my bottle broke in my big bag and now has ruined some of my clothes) and insect repellent. There are so many flies here, its scary. Even with the 95% deet I am covered in bites, which is annoying and looks horrible. Anyway, I had a quick dinner at the restaurant of the resort (Harry’s bungalows, very nice and cheap) and a chilled out evening. Saturday was the big day, so I relaxed a bit, got dressed, took a taxi and started with a lovely cocktail in the outside bar with beach/sea view :-) Katie was half an hour late, but stunning in her beautiful dress and the ceremony was really nice (and rather short). Time to have some drinks and for Katie and Ben to take pictures. In the evening we had dinner with the whole group, took a quiz about the couple (our table won, because we had Ozzies and UK people mixed together) and danced afterwards. Since the party was in the hotel the music had to stop at 12.30 so it was a reasonable early night in. Sunday was another lazy day since it rained the whole afternoon, so not much fun to go out and explore. I phoned the boat company to confirm my trip the next day to Koh Tao, but was told that my 12.30 boat was cancelled and I could only go on the 8 o’clock one, with a 6.30 am pick up. Hmmm, ok then. No sleep whatsoever (still a bit jetlagged I guess) and time to head to the boat. It was a horrendous trip. And I really mean that. The sea was so rough the first people started throwing up within 10 minutes of departure (and it’s a 1,5 hour boattrip) and we took about 30 min longer to get there. I really really did my best and managed not to throw up (I took a seasickness tablet and had only eaten two evergreens at 6 in the morning), but it was not fun at all with half of the passengers being sick around you. When we got to Koh Tao it was bucketing down with rain, so everything was flooded and there was no one to pick me up. So I took a taxi to Big Blue, got myself signed up for the Stress and Rescue course and got a room for free where I chilled out a bit until the rain eased. Hellen, my instructor, told me to look for something more permanent asap, and recommended me a place up the road. I went and there was a room available, so now I am in a nice house for 2 months with 4 other Big Blue trainees/instructors/divemasters. Great, it’s nice to have a bit of ‘family’ around and people who know their way around the island.


Tuesday morning I started my Stress and Rescue course (SSI, not Padi, but it’s basically the same idea) with theory, a video and practical stuff in the afternoon. I took a seasickness tablet on the boat, but it was too late… there were some waves and I started to feel terrible. We checked where all the rescue stuff is on the boat, Hellen talked about the equipment and possible problems with it (what to look out for) and we started with the rescues. From the boat, from the surface of the water, from under water etc. It was pretty intense and I had to do the skill I hate most (talking my mask off under water) until I could swim a circle around without the mask and with my eyes open. Lots of unconscious diver exercises and even more so on the surface of the water. I started to feel really bad by then (once you’re under the water it’s ok, but on the surface the waves really do me in). So we stopped a bit early before we got all the exercises done and only a few minutes on the boat made me have to feed the fish. They were happy and I felt better too. Ronald from Ireland had arrived on Koh Tao in the meantime, so we had dinner at my house and watched a movie called ‘In Bruges’ which wasn’t too bad. They have a really big collection of illegal dvd’s here (they sell them on the main road) so it’s great to be in this house :)

Wednesday morning time for some more theory and to take my theory exam. Ofcourse I had a 100% score! I skipped lunch and took a seasickness tablet early so no worries about that this time and the exercises went well, so I am now a qualified Stress and Rescue diver. This afternoon I will start with my introduction into the Divemaster traineeship, am very curious about what I have to do….

The weather has been really bad so far, lots of rain and thunderstorms (those mainly at night), so there are a few floods here and there and lots of time we have to wade through the water to get to the dive shop. A well it will clear up soon hopefully and at least its warm. I am starting to get used to it anyway and you dry pretty quickly as well. One nasty thing is the ants everywhere (they crawl into your food if you store it), so I will try to find some good plastic containers this afternoon. I also killed a huge spider in my room (10cm big) but that’s about it so far with creepy animals. Ofcourse there are gekkos around the house, but I love those because they eat all the nasty flies and other bugs. So far so good and I’ll keep you guys posted about live in Thailand.