Koh Tao & Koh Samui, Thailand 2020.

Thailand is a very popular dive destination, for both returning divers and new divers (people wanting to do their diving certificate). The clear tropical waters, beautiful brightly coloured fish, and the coral make a great diving environment. A few years back, Ryan and his cousin had done their diving certification with Crystal Dive on Koh Tao island. They both spoke very highly of this shop, and recommended it to Katie and I.

Koh Tao, is a popular tourist destination for diving and snorkelling. It is a beautiful island and quite clean, considering how popular it is. We checked into our room at the dive shop, you got a discount for diving and staying at Crystal Dive. Katie was so excited to do our dive certification. This was encouraging to me as I was more on the fence. I am not a big fan of swimming, I do not like the dark (one of the requirements is a night dive), and honestly never really saw myself being a diver, let alone being interested in what diving had to offer. Despite this I decided to give it a shot; seeing how much Ryan enjoyed diving really helped me make up my mind.

It was a 5 day course for both Open Water and Advanced Open Water certifications. We had two other ladies in our class Siv and Nadia, who were absolute beauties. Day 1 is in class, watching videos and doing a few tests. Day 2 is in the pool: learning your gear, setting up your gear, and using it while swimming in the pool. The first time I went under the water with the gear on completely freaked me out. As I breathed the regulator made all sorts of sounds, which was unexpected for me. I shot out of the water about as fast as I had gone under. Tina was our dive instructor, she is also Canadian and English was luckily her first language, calmed me down and got me back under and focused. Photo Credit: V.Gray

Tina was very experienced and patient, honestly we could not have had a better person to teach us. She helped me overcome my fears and made the entire course a lot of fun. Day 3 and Day 4 we did two dives each day, giving us our Open Water certification, we could dive up to 18 metres in depth. The first 3 dives were all about learning basic skills and communication underwater.

Putting on the gear felt easy, we had practised as a group so much it was fun and felt natural. Next was doing our buddy checks (making sure everything is put on correctly), the jokes were still flowing, everyone was laughing. Then we walked toward the back of the boat to jump into the water, the energy and excitement was absolutely intoxicating.

It wasn’t until we were all floating in the ocean as a group of 5 and Tina said “Ready girls! Regulators in!” and gave the thumbs down to descend. Then it all hit me. HOLY CRAP! We were actually doing this! Descending for the first time under the ocean waves is something I will never forget. It is so calming, as you descend feeling the water temperature drop ever so slightly, watching the fish and other marine life swim by is very relaxing. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would, I found myself actually eager to get back into the water once we resurfaced. So much for all my fears. Our fourth and final dive was a fun dive, no skills to complete.

We dove over Valentine's Day and spent the entire day together so we renamed it "Galentine's Day". Even when we weren't diving we still ended up hanging out at night, going for dinner and having a few beers. On "Galentine's Day" we went for dinner and saw a fire show. We were even nice enough to let Ryan tag along (I think he secretly loved it).

We sat on the beach and watched the performers dance around and wave fire batons. The dancers climbed on each other making pyramids, and then came up close and waved the fire batons over your head.

On our final day of the Open Water course everyone signed up for the Advanced Open Water course. This would allow us to dive up to 30 metres depth, after talking with other divers and our instructor, anything cool fish,sharks, and wrecks are mostly all under 20 metres of depth. This course would involve 2 more days of diving and 5 more dives.

The dives included 3 skill practice dives: buoyancy dive, navigation dive, deep dive, and 2 speciality dives: night dive and wreck dive. As a bonus we all got to stay together and Photo Credit: V.Gray kept Tina as our dive instructor. We all enjoyed spending time together, which helped when it came to learning together. We had to do some book work one night so we stayed at the bar attached to the dive shop then continued into dinner.

After we got the book work done (as the good students we were…), we headed out for dinner and a little bar hoping. We finished our night at a Rastafarian bar that was really cool. It was built like a treehouse, multileveled, and the seating was either rugs, hammocks, or benches with tables. The band was good, the drinks were strong but we had to call it a night early as we had 2 more dives the next Photo Credit: Ryan C.

day to finish our certification.

We completed our last dives, the night dive was entrancing. You are floating through the dark with a flashlight, looking around at nocturnal fish and marine life. There was a giant grouper fish and large groups of barracudas. The wreck dive was on a ship that had been purposely sunk to help rebuild the coral reef in the area. It was really neat to float over and around the ship. The ship was so empty and dark, in a lonesome, eerie kind of way. Once we completed our last dive and were now fully certified, we hung out on the island for our final hours together. Everyone was moving on to different places. Siv was staying on Koh Tao for another night, Nadia was heading home to Denmark, Katie, Ryan, and I were heading to Koh Samui that night to catch our flights (Katie back to Canada and we were heading to Chiang Mai, Thailand).

I learned a lot about myself during the diving course, and overcame some childhood fears. Diving taught me to be patient with myself and others and how to slow down and not rush through things. If you rush you will miss something, whether it is marine life or incorrect assembly of your gear. How to control my breathing even when I am excited, you can easily cut your dive time in half, so staying calm, aware and in control is very important.

Something we learned to pay attention to during our dive course was our travel after. You need to pay attention to your flight time and dive time, making sure you have a 12 hour interval between to avoid decompression sickness (DCS). Going from deep depths to high altitudes can make you very sick. So we spent one night on Koh Samui.

Koh Samui is a busy island with an international airport and it is touristy. When we asked Tina about it, she told us that when they wanted to go see a movie or get western fast food they would do a trip to Koh Samui (she and her boyfriend had been living in Thailand for a few years). Our one night in Koh Samui we stayed at UBox hostel, which had bunk beds in shipping containers, it was a really neat idea. The containers are stacked on top of one another creating multiple dorms. We walked the beach and the markets, getting any last minute souvenirs Katie may need. Then got ready for our early flight north and Katie's flight back home (her vacation was over).

Our next spot was northern Thailand. Cheers!

Photo Credit: V.Gray

A map of Thailand and places we have travelled.

**Please note that all opinions and views expressed in this post are my own, from my own experiences. If you would like to see more pictures follow me on Instagram vikki.gray

This post is edited by E.Gray Editing. (https://www.egrayediting.com )**