Learning to Scuba Dive - Koh Tao, Thailand

The 617-mile trip from Tanah Rata, Malaysia to Koh Tao, Thailand turned out to be much trickier than I’d anticipated, but it ended up going fairly smoothly.  The trip required a minibus from Tanah Rata, a brief stop in Georgetown, another minibus across the border, an overnight train, a ride to the coast in the back of a pick-up, and a ferry into the Gulf of Thailand, totaling about 28 hours of travel time.  Yes, we traveled at an overall average speed of about 22mph.

Southern Thailand is a beach-lover’s paradise, and we knew we wanted to visit one of the many beautiful islands off the coast, but had a hard time choosing.  Phuket, Koh Phi Phi, Koh Pha-Ghan – all are gorgeous, with cheap hotels and lots to do.  But, by deciding that we wanted to use our time at the beach to complete a PADI Open Water scuba diving course, our choice was made easy.  The tiny island (just eight square miles) of Koh Tao – literally “Turtle Island” – is the cheapest place in the world to dive, and more people earn scuba diving certifications there than anywhere else.  I’d been wanting to try scuba diving for a long time, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally do it.

Koh Tao itself was a nice place to be, but it wouldn’t be a great destination for non-divers.  The island’s beaches really don’t compare to many of Thailand’s other offerings.  Further, there’s almost no local culture on Koh Tao.  At any given time, Koh Tao has far more visitors than residents, and most of the people who live there are ex-pats, not Thais.  I don’t think I’ve ever been some place that had so few local people.  But, for people focused on diving, it’s a good choice.

Located in Koh Tao’s heart of Sairee Beach, our hotel, the Prick Thai, was about $20/night and was definitely not the best place we stayed, mainly because there was a pretty serious ant problem.  But it was right across the street from our diving school, which was where we spent most of our time.

It was difficult to choose a school from the 100+ options on Koh Tao, but we eventually ended up at Scuba Junction, mainly because their Trip Advisor reviews were great.  Plus, the people there seemed infinitely more competent than at the other place we looked at, Simple Life Divers.

Before we arrived, I wasn’t too sure what to expect from the course.  It turned out to be pretty intensive and kept us really busy for the 3.5 days that it lasted.  The first three days included classroom time, which meant watching videos and having discussions with our instructor, as well as taking review quizzes on each section.  We also had homework every night – reading a couple chapters from the handbook and answering some questions to discuss the following day.  On our second day, we learned all about the equipment and then went out for our confined water dives (essentially practicing with diving gear in shallow water).  That was definitely the worst time we had in the water, especially for me since I got really seasick on the ride from the coast out to the dive site.  We started with a test of swimming around the boat three times, which would have been nothing except it was pretty stormy that day and the water was super choppy.  Then we put on our equipment for the first time and took our first “giant stride” into the water.  Unfortunately, we then had to swim pretty far, fighting the rough water and feeling awkward in our equipment for the first time, to get to shallower water.  We were pretty wiped by that point, and we hadn’t even started yet!  The rest of our time in the water that day was spent doing “skills,” basically things you need to know in order to dive safely, but that are never used unless there’s an emergency.  We were so anxious to dive down, swim around, and start seeing fish and coral, but we had to spend the day practicing what to do if you lose your mouthpiece or goggles, or you run out of air, or you get too tired to swim back to the boat.  Fortunately, our next two days in the water were much more fun and much easier.

The following day, after doing classroom work in the morning, we left for our first real dives.  It was awesome.  We had to practice some of the same skills in deeper water, but we also got to swim around – and finally feel like we were actually scuba diving!  We did two dives that afternoon and two more the next morning, each lasting about thirty minutes.  We got down as deep as about 17 meters, just shy of the 18-meter maximum allowed for Open Water divers.  Though diving can be a bit nerve-wracking – especially if you really stop to think about how far under the water you are and how terrifying (and potentially dangerous) it would be if your equipment malfunctioned – it can also be relaxing, if you focus on your breath and how your body is moving underwater.  We got to see more fish and plants that I could begin to name, but the things I found the coolest were the various types of coral and the clownfish (aka, Nemo) swimming in their brightly-colored sea anemone habitat.

Following our final dive, we took a written test, which covered what we’d learned in the water, as well as our three days of classroom discussions, videos, readings, and homework.  We both passed and received our certification cards – and began planning our next diving trip!  Spring break 2013, maybe?