Our next port of call on our little adventure is Koh Tao where we have enrolled in a diving course for 5 days.It is quiet and unspoilt little island paradise - that also happens to be overrun with diving schools!
We get there by overnight ferry, which feels like proper backpacker travelling as we share a deck of a boat side by side with rows of other sleeping people and as the sun rises we pull into the port in Koh Tao.
We arrive at the dive school, and for once they weren’t lying when the brochure described it as “right on the beach”. It’s too early to check in so Ellie takes one of her trademark naps (!) in the restaurant of our scuba school which overlooks the beautiful sandy bay. I, meanwhile, am enticed by the cute wooden massage hut and decide to opt for a foot massage. As I lay back and have my feet massaged by a friendly transvestite I look out the window and try to find where the horizon separates the perfect blue sky from the blue green sea. I close my eyes and listen the waves lapping against the legs of the wooden hut. It really feels like paradise, and on a less romantic level I am hoping the massage will help drain my puffy foot which is the last evidence of my cellulitus. I don’t know that it helped, but it felt great and I had a nice little chat with the transvestite afterward!
Later that afternoon we get started on our scuba course with a mind numbing 90s style instruction video that is tough to stay awake during-so I don’t. Later we meet the other 2 people on our course, an Irish couple called Allie and Michael, they are lovely. They are doing the PADI course, whereas unknowingly, we have gone for the cheaper option of SSI. All the instructors there teach both courses and assure us that the biggest difference is that PADI is more expensive. The fact that we are on different courses also means Allie and Michael do their theory classes with slightly scary instructor Dutch Dan, whereas myself and El get to have our classroom sessions with hilariously entertaining french Canadian instructor Jean-Nic. Another plus for the SSI course! Jean-nic tells us important things like the fact that the scuba mask makes things look closer and bigger…so boys often like to check out their own anatomy while they are under the water!!
Ducth Dan is our instructor for the open water diving. He is a little bit gruff and everyone is pretty much terrified of him. He is a bit nicer to me though- I think purely because he told me he as a niece in Ireland called Siobhan! Celebs have the right idea, it really is great when your name opens doors for you.Dan is a bit of a character too; he has a tattoo of the rolling stones symbol on his left calf and the caricatures of the 4 Beatles on his right calf. Eleanor is troubled: “you have to pick one or the other!”He also has a Who tattoo on his shoulder. Buying records just isn’t enough for some people I guess . I'm getting my Take That and Boyzone body-art next week.
Michael and Allie
So we cover all our theory in the classroom with hilarious Jean Nic and do our homework every night like good girls before having dinner most nights in the scuba school restaurant and a few drinks with Mikey and Allie. Generally during dinner there is some hilariously crap movie on such as “Death Race” starring Jason Statham or some Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen movie. We are not really allowed to drink too much because it increases the likelihood of getting the bends- so we have to watch Mr. Statham “act” without even numbing our brain cells first. We do get a laugh out of the one liners though- including a spectacular profanity laden quote by normally demure actress Joan Allen. I couldn’t even repeat it- but it’s worth watching the movie for that line alone!
(no under water pics so please enjoy this butterfly!)
We do our first 3 dives and practice different skills under the water like pretending we are out of air and getting someone to help you. If our acting skills aren’t convincing enough first time around Dan makes us repeat the performance. The first dive where we go a little deeper I know there are fish and coral all around me but I don’t see any of them as I too concerned with dying of a pulmonary embolism or to a less dramatic extent bursting an ear drum. After a while I get a better handle of equalizing my ear pressure and start to really enjoy the diving.
Our last dive day also happens to coincide with my birthday. It’s our best dive yet, we see a Sting-ray slither under a rock away from us, as does a moray eel. Other fish are less bothered by our presence – and while we stare at them with wide eyes full of wonder they just look back at us as if we were another rock and go on swimming. Unrequited love is hard sometimes. We also see a beautiful spotted shell in the corals, razor fish that swim vertically and even the scary trigger fish that is viciously territorial . The place we dive on this day has huge corals that tower up above us and it really feels like you are in a completely different world. As Sebastian from the Little Mermaid would say “It’s better down where it’s wetter, under the sea!!”
It’s not all a walk in the marine park though. There are moments of panic where you feel like you’re not getting enough air, our your mask presses down on your face or when the whole world of sea and sky is literally pressing on your shoulders. And after our last dive I do feel like I’m on a boat for the rest of the day swaying from side to side. Still it’s been 4 days with a lot of diving and we managed not to spontaneously combust under the water so I decide that the benefits definitely outweigh the risks.
By the the end of the 5th day we are completely hooked on diving, my only regret being that we didn’t rent an underwater camera for our last dive. We decide we will definitely be continuing the search for Nemo and the rest of his mates in Koh Phangan or Bali.
We get there by overnight ferry, which feels like proper backpacker travelling as we share a deck of a boat side by side with rows of other sleeping people and as the sun rises we pull into the port in Koh Tao.
 |
| From Koh Tao and Koh Pha Ngang |
 |
| From Koh Tao and Koh Pha Ngang |
 |
| From Koh Tao and Koh Pha Ngang |
We arrive at the dive school, and for once they weren’t lying when the brochure described it as “right on the beach”. It’s too early to check in so Ellie takes one of her trademark naps (!) in the restaurant of our scuba school which overlooks the beautiful sandy bay. I, meanwhile, am enticed by the cute wooden massage hut and decide to opt for a foot massage. As I lay back and have my feet massaged by a friendly transvestite I look out the window and try to find where the horizon separates the perfect blue sky from the blue green sea. I close my eyes and listen the waves lapping against the legs of the wooden hut. It really feels like paradise, and on a less romantic level I am hoping the massage will help drain my puffy foot which is the last evidence of my cellulitus. I don’t know that it helped, but it felt great and I had a nice little chat with the transvestite afterward!
 |
| From Koh Tao and Koh Pha Ngang |
 |
| From Koh Tao and Koh Pha Ngang |
Later that afternoon we get started on our scuba course with a mind numbing 90s style instruction video that is tough to stay awake during-so I don’t. Later we meet the other 2 people on our course, an Irish couple called Allie and Michael, they are lovely. They are doing the PADI course, whereas unknowingly, we have gone for the cheaper option of SSI. All the instructors there teach both courses and assure us that the biggest difference is that PADI is more expensive. The fact that we are on different courses also means Allie and Michael do their theory classes with slightly scary instructor Dutch Dan, whereas myself and El get to have our classroom sessions with hilariously entertaining french Canadian instructor Jean-Nic. Another plus for the SSI course! Jean-nic tells us important things like the fact that the scuba mask makes things look closer and bigger…so boys often like to check out their own anatomy while they are under the water!!
Ducth Dan is our instructor for the open water diving. He is a little bit gruff and everyone is pretty much terrified of him. He is a bit nicer to me though- I think purely because he told me he as a niece in Ireland called Siobhan! Celebs have the right idea, it really is great when your name opens doors for you.Dan is a bit of a character too; he has a tattoo of the rolling stones symbol on his left calf and the caricatures of the 4 Beatles on his right calf. Eleanor is troubled: “you have to pick one or the other!”He also has a Who tattoo on his shoulder. Buying records just isn’t enough for some people I guess . I'm getting my Take That and Boyzone body-art next week.
Michael and Allie
 |
| From Koh Tao and Koh Pha Ngang |
So we cover all our theory in the classroom with hilarious Jean Nic and do our homework every night like good girls before having dinner most nights in the scuba school restaurant and a few drinks with Mikey and Allie. Generally during dinner there is some hilariously crap movie on such as “Death Race” starring Jason Statham or some Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen movie. We are not really allowed to drink too much because it increases the likelihood of getting the bends- so we have to watch Mr. Statham “act” without even numbing our brain cells first. We do get a laugh out of the one liners though- including a spectacular profanity laden quote by normally demure actress Joan Allen. I couldn’t even repeat it- but it’s worth watching the movie for that line alone!
(no under water pics so please enjoy this butterfly!)
 |
| From Koh Tao and Koh Pha Ngang |
We do our first 3 dives and practice different skills under the water like pretending we are out of air and getting someone to help you. If our acting skills aren’t convincing enough first time around Dan makes us repeat the performance. The first dive where we go a little deeper I know there are fish and coral all around me but I don’t see any of them as I too concerned with dying of a pulmonary embolism or to a less dramatic extent bursting an ear drum. After a while I get a better handle of equalizing my ear pressure and start to really enjoy the diving.
Our last dive day also happens to coincide with my birthday. It’s our best dive yet, we see a Sting-ray slither under a rock away from us, as does a moray eel. Other fish are less bothered by our presence – and while we stare at them with wide eyes full of wonder they just look back at us as if we were another rock and go on swimming. Unrequited love is hard sometimes. We also see a beautiful spotted shell in the corals, razor fish that swim vertically and even the scary trigger fish that is viciously territorial . The place we dive on this day has huge corals that tower up above us and it really feels like you are in a completely different world. As Sebastian from the Little Mermaid would say “It’s better down where it’s wetter, under the sea!!”
It’s not all a walk in the marine park though. There are moments of panic where you feel like you’re not getting enough air, our your mask presses down on your face or when the whole world of sea and sky is literally pressing on your shoulders. And after our last dive I do feel like I’m on a boat for the rest of the day swaying from side to side. Still it’s been 4 days with a lot of diving and we managed not to spontaneously combust under the water so I decide that the benefits definitely outweigh the risks.
By the the end of the 5th day we are completely hooked on diving, my only regret being that we didn’t rent an underwater camera for our last dive. We decide we will definitely be continuing the search for Nemo and the rest of his mates in Koh Phangan or Bali.
 |
| From Koh Tao and Koh Pha Ngang |
 |
| From Koh Tao and Koh Pha Ngang |
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