Swimming with the Fishies

I am officially a certified scuba diver! I spent about a week on Ko Tao, an island a few hours off of the mainland, and spent about 6 days diving. Getting here was a 24 hour adventure--I could have made it home in the same amount of time! Left Joc's apt at 645am and discovered that the 8am train I wanted was full. "Ok, when's the next train?" "1pm." Oops. So I was 5 1/2 hours in the train station, a 9 1/2 hour train ride, a quick moto ride to the pier, then a 6-7 overnight ferry ride to the island. Ooof. But I made it!

I did a 4 day open water course to get certified, meaning I can dive anywhere in the world up to 18meters. Then I stayed on to do the advanced course (because money grows on trees, right?) so now I'm certified to dive up to 30 meters, the limit for recreational diving. 

It was amazing!! I've always loved water and swimming and snorkeling, so after the initial "oh wow this is weird I'm uncomfortable how am i still breathing under water ah my ears are popping wait shit how do I float" etc etc, it was great. And you start in the classroom and the pool, so you feel ready for the sea. Rough life, I had to do homework and take an exam and talk about physics. I'm sure you all feed bad for me. 

I learned to hover upside down and "mission impossible," style (ie on my stomach just above the sand/coral), did a navigation dive (and only got a litttttle lost), a night dive, a wreck dive at an old WWII ship, a deep dive (up to 30m), and saw lots of cool fish and coral. It felt like I was in Finding Nemo--and we did see the only 5 little clown fish at the dive site, so I found him! To be honest, I saw more while snorkeling in the Galapagos than I did diving here, but I guess when you start at the pinnacle, that's to be expected. So I can't complain! 

Diving is a really expensive hobby--of course the only athletics I'm good at are skiing and diving. Why couldn't I be good at basketball?! But even though this took a massive portion of my budget, Ko Tao is actually one of the cheapest places to dive and get certified in the world. I've always always always wanted to scuba dive, so it just made sense to do it here. I'm hoping to dive again in Indonesia for sure, and maybe Malaysia if I can swing it.

Tonight I'm off overnight to Krabi,

on the other coast, where i'll island hop for about 2ish more weeks. 

Summary: I'm tan and happy and exhausted and feeling good!