Emily:
I signed up to the SSI open water diving course over the next 3 days with Big Blue. Although the videos and pool skills were a bit tedious, it had to be done and was worth it when we went diving on the second day! The water was so warm, but as with any warm bath, you eventually adjust to the temperature and start to get cold (fact: you lose heat 25%faster in water than in air) so ended up wearing a wetsuit for all of my dives in 30 degree water! The number and colours of the sea life was awesome, although if I wanted to stop and look at something I ended up floating away and flapping my arm round trying not to move – luckily that started to improve by the end! I had a great instructor, Chloe from France, who has lived on Koh Tao for ten years. She was patient and up for some fun and a laugh, but not at all patronising or boring to listen to. There were six people in my group which was big enough and worked well. We all went on to do the advance course to be qualified to go to 30m. It was the highlight of the course as it didn’t involve any tests or reading or videos, we just did five cool dives over two days. The night dive was cool but I didn’t see quite as much as what I thought I would. It could be because I was concentrating on following the person in front of me so I didn’t get lost, and my torch wasn’t very strong. I wore two wetsuits for this dive and saw a huge sleeping Green Turtle and glittering phosphorescence (plankton glowing) when I waved my hand around in front of my face.

The deep dive was the most important as we went to 30m (I actually went to 30.9m!), without any problems so are now qualified to go to 30m anywhere else in the world with a dive master. We did a navigational dive where we were given compasses and together with our buddy had to go diving and find our way back to the boat ourselves. Unfortunately my buddy got low on a air so we had to surface early, otherwise I’m sure we would’ve been right on target in hitting the boy line! The buoyancy dive was a lot of fun, it focuses on developing perfect buoyancy and control via your breathing. There was a great underwater obstacle course at one of the dive sites that we all tried – going through hoops, weaving up and down through nets, and pivoting on the bottom with only our finger touching the sand. Chloe had removed a weight from my weight belt it before the dive so I was all over the place trying to adjust to my new buoyancy but it was still a lot of fun! I went on my first run since my knee accident one year ago – we removed our fins on the bottom and had a running race in which I came second and apparently looked very graceful! It was nice to go through the motions of running again even if I wasn’t moving very fast!

The final dive was the wreck dive just out from the Big Blue base. It was a warship called HTMS Sattakut, originally owned by the US Navy and involved in WWII at Iwo Kima and Okinawa in 1945. It was sunk in 2011 and now provides an artificial reef and awesome diving site! We couldn’t go inside but swimming up the stairs on the deck and around the cannons was really cool!
Over all my favourite sea life was the Blue Spotted Ribbon Tailed Ray (gorgeous colours) and the Long Fin Banner fish. We also saw Parrot Fish, Neon Fish, Christmas Tree Worms, Long faced Emperor Fish, Giant Groupers (as big as a small child!), White Eyed Moray Eels, Great Barracudas, and the unfortunately named Varicose Wart Slug. Plus many many more! I’m so excited I can now dive in the Coromandel, and am looking forward to diving elsewhere in the world!