The Life Aquatic - Itchy Feets

We’ve both yearned to scuba dive for ages. This trip, full of bucket list items, was the time to do it.

Koh Tao is the place to learn how to dive. 74 dive schools are concentrated on an 8 sq mile Thai island. The abundance of schools makes prices very competitive.

Paul’s sister Lindsay, who also traveled with us for a bit in Europe, met up with us, and we embarked on a four day open water training course at Roctopus dive.

The first day involved filling out forms, watching safety videos, and completing a homework assignment. (I thought I was done with homework after vet school.) We met our instructor Steve, who looks, acts, and sounds like Seth Rogan. Day two, we went over the homework, then learned how to set up the equipment. After a quick lunch, we set out on a boat for Japanese Gardens.

We first had to complete a swim test to make sure we were fit to be in the water. Then, came the time for putting on our gear: wet suit, weight belt, buoyancy compensator, tank, mask and fins.

Insuring that the cylinder isn't going to fall off the buoyancy converter. — Insuring that the cylinder isn’t going to fall off the buoyancy converter.

Suited up, we entered the water, and began our in water training. It was a strange sensation, going underwater and not holding my breath. But as long as I continuously breathed, it was comfortable.

We learned how to clear our masks when they fill with water, how to purge our regulators (the mouthpiece we breath through) if they came out of our mouths, and what to do if we ran out of air.

Clearing water from the mask while under water.

On the third day, we took a test. Having passed that, we were able to start actually diving. We had two dives, where we practiced our skills again, then swam around a bit. The focus was on working with our buoyancy.

We all had different skills that we found difficult. Paul really struggled with clearing water from the mask under water. I found it hard to stay neutrally buoyant, and kept sinking. Lindsay seemed pretty comfortable with everything. It’s pretty demanding of the body, and we were exhausted afterwards.

On the final day, we woke early to get to the center at 6am. The seas were very rough that day, which meant we had to enter the water by falling backwards off the boat.

The visibility on the first dive, at Chumpon, was incredible. We could see so far. Back on the surface between dives, my body had enough of the choppy seas, and my previously eaten breakfast ended up in the water. Seasickness has never been an issue before. Anyway, it’s much calmer under the surface, and my stomach settled down on the last dive. We saw lots of huge barracuda and colorful little fish. After our four dives, we were certified to scuba dive! After a long nap, we celebrated at a pub with other “graduates”.