On our very first day on Koh Tao we begin our open water dive course at a centre called 'Big Blue'. Alex is staying here for two months to become a 'dive master', Charlotte and I will stay for about a week before heading to Cambodia, Loas and Vietnam.
The course begins with lots of paper work, mostly disclaimers, but we fill the forms out whilst sitting at a bar on the beach, so its not too awful. We then have an introductory talk with about 20 other people who are all starting the course before being handed a book on diving and six pages of 'fill in the blank' questions which we have to make a start on whilst watching an accompanying video. The statments vary in difficulty from; "Divers wear masks so that they can ____ underwater" to " ______ ______ occurs when a diver reaches a bottom level of at least _____"*. The video lasts for 2 hours and is very cheesy, showing grinning people putting on masks and practising underwater signals.
On day two we are assigned our instructor, Nick, who has been diving for five years and also teaches the dive master course. He is very laid back compared to the other instructors and says things like 'Right, put your respirators on the cylinders." before walking off. But after an couple of hours in the pool we could all take our masks on and off whilst under water and then empty them of water, share air if someone runs out, retive dropped respirators, make an emergeny ascent and hover in mid water by controlling our breathing. We also have to take a swim test, which involves treadding water for 10 mintues, then swimming lengths for 10 minutes. In the afternoon we watch more videos which cover decompression sickness, nitrogen narcosis, first aid and poisonous sea creatures - basically everything that can go wrong whilst diving. Nick's version of the talk includes lots of stories of people getting nitrogen narcosis (which is common and not dangerous, just funny). Once someone thought he was having a conversation with a fish, and got annoyed when the fish stopped talking and swam away. Another person belived that a near by fish was 'out of air' and swam after it trying to put their spare respirator in the fish's mouth.
In the evening we celebrate my birthday by having drinks on the beach and watching the 'fire poy' display (bundles of fabric attached to rope, soaked petrol and set on fire before being spun around the head and body in different patterns). The act involves two young topless Thai men who spin the poy around their heads, between the legs and even through them up in the air and between each other, somehow managing to catch the not-on-fire end. We have a fairly early night as we have a multiple choice test in the morning and our first ocean dive.
*The answers are 1. See, 2.Nitrogen narcosis, 3. 30 meters
Above: Big Blue (before a storm)
The course begins with lots of paper work, mostly disclaimers, but we fill the forms out whilst sitting at a bar on the beach, so its not too awful. We then have an introductory talk with about 20 other people who are all starting the course before being handed a book on diving and six pages of 'fill in the blank' questions which we have to make a start on whilst watching an accompanying video. The statments vary in difficulty from; "Divers wear masks so that they can ____ underwater" to " ______ ______ occurs when a diver reaches a bottom level of at least _____"*. The video lasts for 2 hours and is very cheesy, showing grinning people putting on masks and practising underwater signals.
On day two we are assigned our instructor, Nick, who has been diving for five years and also teaches the dive master course. He is very laid back compared to the other instructors and says things like 'Right, put your respirators on the cylinders." before walking off. But after an couple of hours in the pool we could all take our masks on and off whilst under water and then empty them of water, share air if someone runs out, retive dropped respirators, make an emergeny ascent and hover in mid water by controlling our breathing. We also have to take a swim test, which involves treadding water for 10 mintues, then swimming lengths for 10 minutes. In the afternoon we watch more videos which cover decompression sickness, nitrogen narcosis, first aid and poisonous sea creatures - basically everything that can go wrong whilst diving. Nick's version of the talk includes lots of stories of people getting nitrogen narcosis (which is common and not dangerous, just funny). Once someone thought he was having a conversation with a fish, and got annoyed when the fish stopped talking and swam away. Another person belived that a near by fish was 'out of air' and swam after it trying to put their spare respirator in the fish's mouth.
In the evening we celebrate my birthday by having drinks on the beach and watching the 'fire poy' display (bundles of fabric attached to rope, soaked petrol and set on fire before being spun around the head and body in different patterns). The act involves two young topless Thai men who spin the poy around their heads, between the legs and even through them up in the air and between each other, somehow managing to catch the not-on-fire end. We have a fairly early night as we have a multiple choice test in the morning and our first ocean dive.
*The answers are 1. See, 2.Nitrogen narcosis, 3. 30 meters
Above: Sun-set from Big Blue
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