9th - 12th September, PADI-Thai

After arriving on Ko Tao I hired a scooter and went searching for a dive school. I decided on 'Buddha View' which was OK, perhaps not as personal as smaller schools... Because they offered subsidised accommodation, and as the world-cup had just started I opted for the fancy-ass room with Cable TV. The room was mint, I had my own massive deck and for the first time on my trip; hot water!!!

Before starting the course I toured the island on my rental. It's pretty small and many of the roads are just dirt and big rocks... felt a bit dodgy taking the bike over them without a helmet.

I sat in my room to watch the Italy vs. NZ game, was very exciting.

The course took 4 days. The first was just a lesson, the second day was in the pool, the third day was out at sea just to a few metres and on the last day we were meant to go down to 18m... my gauge was telling me I was at 25m and while I was fussing over it I missed a black shark that was right in front of us. Was so annoyed, everyone else in the group saw it except me!

We had another dive to just 12m where we took off our fins and played around standing at the bottom of the sea. Was so much fun, could just jump up, do a double somersault then land on my feet again. Couple of guys did a big matrix style fight, was quite funny.

The water, coral and sea life were amazing I'd recommend Ko Tao to others wanting to learn.