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Monday 9 July 2012

Scuba Diving in Koh Tao


We went to Koh Tao mainly to learn to dive but also found Koh Tao to be a lovely island. Diving was amazing we both got our open water qualification and Gareth went on to do his advanced open water qualification.

We stayed and dived with a company called Big Blue. They were great and so much cheaper then any other place in the world. The open water qualification included 1 day in the pool and class room followed by 4 dives at sea up to 18 meters deep, (think of a 6 storey building). We dove off boats at some great coral reef sites.

This was our group for the open water course. Me and Michelle were dive buddies for the course and with our instructor Guy we had a great time.

As we were learning the basics we weren't allowed to take a camera down with us but we did have a film made of us which is about 20 min long and I promise when we get back you can watch it if you ask :)


 

Michelle giving the OK hand signal after finishing the course. The same signal is both a question and an answer when diving 

After completing the open water course Gareth did an advanced course which included 5 more dives going down to a maximum depth of 30 meter (now think of a 10 storey building, if you know Chester that is nearly as high as the cathedral!)

 

On the 2nd day I got the chance to specialise and learn about underwater photography. All the underwater photos in this blog were taken off a camera I borrowed to use that day. Now underwater light is absorbed, especially red and most of the pictures had a distinctly blue tinge. Some of these I have partially fixed in the computer after.

     


We saw everything from anenome and clown fish (nemo), to trigger fish, barracuda, masked butterfly fish, parrot fish and more.

    

Here is a pictures of a Moorish Idol and a crown of thorns starfish. 



This picture of a sea urchin was taken at 30 meters below the surface, where almost all the colour (except blue) has been lost.
 



This Grouper was about a 1m long and even had its own Remora attached to it. It looks very grumpy but is pretty harmless.



This pictures has not been altered the colours really were this bright. These are Christmas Tree worms or Spirobranchus giganteus. The bright colours are great and if you get too close they hide back down into their burrows and disapear. 




This is Skuie (sorry if I spelt your name wrong) who was my instructor for the advanced course. She took me on some great dives, my favourite being the night dive on a tiny little boat (only had 6  of us on it and couldn't fit many more) in rough choppy seas and into the inky black of the underwater world at night. Great experience and I got to see both a turtle and a blue spotted stingray.








One of the dives for my advnaced course was down onto a wreck. Wreck 742 was originally owned by the US navy and then given to the Thai navy who after years of service sunk it a year ago to creat an artifical reef and dive site. and








It was great fun learning to dive (even if my mask did sometimes fill up with water). I hope I can dive again on future holidays. After 5 days on Koh Tao we left this lovely Island to continue on to southern Thailand.



3 comments:

  1. Congratulations on the advanced dive, it looks really scary going that deep. We are really proud of you. Lots of love

    Mum and Dad xxx

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  2. Awesome pictures. I love them all.

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  3. I don’t usually comment but I gotta state thanks for the post on this great one : D. look at these guys

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