Travelman's Travels in Thailand Chapter 4: Live and Let Dive on Ko Tao (part 4 of 4)

It was the first time I'd ever worn a wetsuit. I put it on backwards. I knew the zipper went in the back but I'm so used to having a zipper in front my entire life, I didn't realize what I was doing. A nice, local, Thai, employee quietly approached me and let me know of my mistake. We both laughed sheepishly. It was the morning of the first open water dive.

All of us were bursting with excitement. I ate a big breakfast and drank a lot of electrolyte water as instructed. We retrieved our equipment from the dive shack and carried it to the patio for eventual loading onto the tail boat. The time came, Scottie instructed us to carry our bags to the boat, dip them in the ocean to get rid of the sand and hand them to an instructor. We piled onto the boat, each in great spirits.

The tailboat was taking us out to a larger boat, the Enza.

Once on the boat, we were instructed to go upstairs and hang out for the forty minute journey to the dive site on the southern tip of the island.

This pic has a good shot of Ant in the background. Steph, Allie, and Betti in the foreground...

Scottie called my group together for the pre-dive briefing. He reiterated everything he'd taught us and the skills we'd practice under water. Pretty much a repeat of the previous day but in the ocean. I took pictures during the briefing. Scottie said, "They'll be plenty of time for pictures on the way back, mate." (Sorry, Scottie. hanging my head for being a bad student.)

I have a possible name for the rock in the background to the left of Scottie's head, but I'll let you name it yourself...

We reached the site and Scottie beckoned us to the lower deck, time to suit up. I quizzed myself as I ran through my checklist of what to do to get my gear ready. I was impressed with myself for remembering. Mattia and I did our pre-dive buddy check on each other. The mnemonic Scottie gave us to remember the buddy check steps was Bruce Willis Rocks all Films, or ruins if you're not a fan. He had a couple others as well, but that's the one Mattia and I used.

Here's Shanie worried about sunburn, Oleg silently putting on his weight belt, and Scottie and Mattia in the background...

I'm out of dive pictures so the rest of this story will have to be a picture painted by a thousand words or so. As trainees in our first open water course, we weren't allowed to take GoPros on the dive, too dangerous for someone who needs to worry more about not injuring themself than documenting how cool they are.

Before we got in the water, Scottie reminded Mattia and I of the number one rule of diving. The rule that he had pounded into our head; you gotta look cool. Really, though, his definiton of looking cool was following all the rules we'd learned, cuz nobody looks cool when suffering from decompression sickness, otherwise known as "the Bends" (shout out to Radiohead! Awesome album, one of my all time favorites).

Mattia went in off the back of the boat first. Long step, and in, nice and vertical, hold the regulator, hold the mask. I went in next. I didn't hold my mask well enough and it came off as I hit the water. Only my pride was damaged. It wouldn't be the last wound to my ego on this adventure though.

When we were all in the water, we descended. My ears began to hurt like hell in the first couple feet. We were only going down to nine meters the first day and I was having trouble a few centimeters into the descent. I wiggled my jaw, pinched my nose as I blew out, holding my breath (the valsalva technique), and tried to swallow, everything I'd been taught, but nothing was working. In class they talked about the possibility of bursting your ear drum, so I didn't push through the pain, out of worry of causing real problems. My classmates were descending easily and I was lingering toward the surface. I'd go down a few centimeters, then have to come back up most of the depth I'd gained. It was a continual piercing pain. I began to wonder if I'd have to abort my dive, I worried about holding up my team. We only had so much time under the water, only so much air in the tanks, I felt guilty. Through it all I remained calm. Scottie came to me and I indicated my problem. He gave me the signal to flatten out and circle down. I did this and it still hurt but I eventually made my way to the bottom. It felt like forever. Swallowing seemed to work best.

Once kneeling on the ocean floor with my group in the circle, I had trouble staying in that position, I felt like I didn't have enough weight. I just wanted the dive to be over. I was already thinking about the next dive that day and worrying that I'd ruin it for my teammates with my ear issues.

Scottie.ran us through our underwater skills individually. Once we were done with those he led us out to explore the deep, well the nine meter depth. The visibility was poor, it was mostly sand. I kind of thought it sucked. Especially compared to snorkeling in Hawaii, and snorkeling didn't require all the gear, cost, and training. There weren't even that many fish. It was cool to be diving, but it wasn't nearly as cool as I'd expected and my ears screamed at me everytime my body changed depth by the slightest measurement. I happpened to be the first one to reach the low point for a safe amount of air. That was the signal to go up.

I kept my spirits up, and spoke about the dive as positively as I could, accentuating the good parts, expressing my ear problems but downplaying them to my classmates. My nose was producing a lot of snot. I dreaded the next dive.

The next dive was ok but not great. SLightly better visibility, slightly more fish. I knew what to expect with my ears on the second dive so, although still a problem, it was less stressful. After the dive, on the way back to the resort, Scottie said he'd noticed me snorting out the snot after the dive, he offered to give me decongestants before the dives on the following day. The videos had warned against this (I didn't know why). I asked Scottie about what the videos had said. He told me it was out of concern that divers would be taking them all the time, depending on them, but once in awhile was fine. I agreed.

When we got back to the beach and onto the patio, Scottie bought all of us beers in the debriefing and congratulated us. He did have to reiterate some of the rules to the Israelis though. Mattia later told me he saw Scottie catch them trying to stick a piece of coral in their pocket during the dive. This was a giant no-no. Big Blue is all about Environmental activism, so especially bad at this company. When I heard this story I was disgusted with their actions. I though it was despicable.I couldn't believe they had the nerve after all we'd learned about how the oceans were being killed by us humans.

The second day started bright and early and 0600. We went out to Shark Island. The decongestants worked like a charm. The diving was a thousand percent better. My ears didn't bother me at all. The visibility was much better and the fish were much more numerous. It was fantastic and got me hooked on diving. For a few moments during that dive I got worried that I'd never leave Ko Tao. I was thinking I'd end up mimicking Ant's story, dive four days into my round the world trip and end up a dive master by the end of it. The best part of the dive was the brightly colored manta ray hanging out under a rock that Scottie pointed out to us. When the dive site is good and conditions are right, it's a fucking magical time. The second site was great as well, I think that's where the manta ray was.

That evening they presented an edited video of our two days of diving. Mattia had a moment in the video wherein he was captured doing an underwater flip for the videographer. Travelman had a moment in the video wherein he was captured stumbling as he went to jump off the boat, then gracefully losing his mask when jumping in the water, then surfacing confused and coughing. Travelman may just be the coolest guy in the world.

We had some beers at the resort's patio bar that evening and reveled in our great bravery displayed against the ocean depths of 17.9 meters. Most of the people, the ones that weren't caught stumbling in the commemorative video, bought the video. I requested that the DVDs be destroyed and a virus be introduced into the videographer's computer.

Allie and Ed liked the experience so much that they delayed their flight to Bali so that they could stay and take the advanced course. Mattia, Steph, and Betti signed up for a fun dive the next day. Travelman felt it was time to move on... Another town, another adventure, another stumble into the waters of life.

Now play the dramatic Baywatch echoey da-da-Da-DUM music in your head as you look at this final picture...