Met with Scott at his hotel, he was busy watching a film in the luxury of his air conditioned room, so we ventured back to Crystal to grab the bike and go for breaky…on the way we bumped into Nathan who was going to Chalok, other end of the island to grab some food, so we decided to go with him, just for a change of scenery.   We both ended up having a jacket spud would you believe with cheese and bean. Very nice indeed 😀

Back at the Crystal we thought it would be an ideal time to catch Matt the Crystal Course Director to film his part in the ‘The Rocky Horror Crystal Show’ as Si had his camcorder but as we arrived he was just leaving, full of cold  ..sounding terrible.  A real shame but we managed to grab Lob (an instructor) to shoot a B list version in one of the classrooms to test the lighting and work out exactly what Matt would have to do.   Its going to be hilarious!

Running only a hour or so late we met Scott at his hotel and played in the pool.  After a few hours in the pool we felt pretty peckish so went to Cafe Del Sol for a sandwich and drink and then headed home for a shower and change of clothes, ready for a night out in Sairee.

Today, I was rudely awakened by my phone ringing…. it was the Dive School. They had no-one to teach the Discover Scuba Diving to Scott and since we were instructors, they asked if we could come down to do it ourselves.

So we zoomed down to Crystal, and briefed Scott, before getting him into all the kit and jumping into the pool.

I could tell he was nervous, but Jen and I did a good job of making him feel safe and comfortable. We did the necessary few skill demonstrations, and he repeated them, completing his pool session in relatively quick time.

So, we had an hour spare to grab some food and get our butts to the boat.

Boarding the boat, we showed Scott where things are put etc, and set the kit up for him. We had roll call and the boat left dock for Mango Bay, a dive site at the North end of the island.

Once we had arrived and finished briefing Scott on the dive procedures, we jumped in and went down via the buoy line. Besides a small cough splutter at the beginning, Scott had no troubles… We even managed to find the huge bait ball of Fusiliers, who have apparently been missing for months!

Upon returning to the boat, and completing roll call. The boat moved to Japanese Gardens, when Scott did a free descent with me holding on to him. Jen navigated this dive while I monitored Scott, and we saw lots of things including Triggerfish, Pufferfish, Groupers, Squid, to name a few. Jen navigated perfectly back to the boat, and we all came up with smiles on our face.!

We returned to Mae Haad, and washed our kit etc. Then after a quick game of pool, we headed to Dirty Nelly’s as there was an Instructor party being held there, which meant free food!!!

We spent the next few hours putting the world to rights, and headed back home to bed, where we watched the Eastenders live episode….How sad are we?!

SD

We met Scott at his hotel and jumped in the pool. Boy it’s hot today! Si tried to drown me on several occasions but was unsuccessful 😉 LOL

Feeling jaded after a latish night last night and the heat is just draining, especially when you’re not diving.

Around 2pm we headed up to ‘Zest’ for lunch and a refeshing ice cream shake whilst watching some of the winter olympics.

On our way back to the pool, we took a slight detour through the small market off one of the side roads to have a look at swimming trunks/shorts but saw nothing we fancied.

What a relief to get back into the pool. It actually felt cold as we were so damn hot! After a few hours of seeing who could swim the furthest underwater, hold their breath sitting on the botton, swimming through each others legs and handstands etc, we vacated the pool all wrinklly and sat on the beach front having a beer.

Tonight we’re off to ‘Tattoo’ bar/cafe where they do great pies and have ping pong 😉

Tomorrow Scott has signed up for a DSD (Discover Scuba Diving) and we’re all going out on the afternoon boat for a couple of leisurely dives. I just hope that the visibility is good.

JD x