Up early (AGAIN!) for the final 2 dives of my 1st Open Water Course, team teaching with Fred.

I met the tired students at the dive centre, and had the Divemaster Trainee pack their bags while I sipped a cup of coffee..

When the videographer turned up, we took our bags to the boat, set up our kit and briefed for the 1st dive to Chumphon Pinnacle…. Due to Chumphon being a deep dive site, we decided to move the remainder of their skills to Dive 4.

They all did very well, controlling their buoyancy and following me… sometimes I find it very difficult swimming backwards for nearly 45 mins, and being aware of where i am going!. They enjoyed the dive immensely, seeing some larger forms of life etc.

Next dive, we dropped down to Buoyancy World for skills, mask removals, fin pivots, hovering, and navigation, then Fred returned to the boat and I continued with with dive.

All done, they were now certified (after I filled out paperwork for 2 hours!)…

They all finished the video with a shot jumping from the top of the boat… this was where we almost had a big problem. The 1st guy who jumped in slipped as he jumped, rammed his foot on the top of the boat and went into the sea missing the boat by inches! I was extremely concerned… But he popped up, and besides some bruising to his foot, he was okay… It could have been so much worse… (Video to follow!)

We returned and I went back home to sort our laundry out, while Jen started an Open Water Course (academics)…

In the evening, once Jen was finished, we watched the Open Water video, and then returned home for an early night. Jen was particularly deflated by her day.. She is teaching academics to a class of 18.! A bit of backchat from students, and general confidence issues from Jen had her feeling very low… But a bit of focus, and she is back on top cracking the whip.!

Today I was supposed to start Team teaching but it was put back a day so I put myself on the afternoon boat for a fun dive.  Luckily enough, Simon was doing the Open Water exam with his students and swim test and was then also on afternoon boat doing open waters dives 1 & 2 YAY!

On the boat I was talking about last years trip and mentioned that it was just typical that as soon as we left koh Tao, Whale Shark were being spotted nearly every day, then I looked up and just shouted WHALE!!!!!!  .I’d spotted two Bryde’s whales 150mtrs from the boat  …there was a wave of excitement and the boat changed direction heading towards them.   People were kitting up and ready to jump in, especially the videographer group on the boat but the whales changed directions several times, once surfacing just infront of the boat which was amazing and then headed out to, so be abandoned the chase and continued onto ‘Twin’ dive site.

I was so happy to have spotted them and on the first fun dive kept on checking the deep, just on the off chance that I might see them again.   That would have been amazing.

The Dive itself was great, a few of us decided to go and look for the Secret Pinnacle and managed to find it with some vague directions from one of the Instructors.  It made a nice change and obviously there was no one else there.   On the way back to the boat I found a 0.8kg weight and some rubbish so just stuffed that in my pocket.

The 2nd dive was a ‘Japanese Gardens’  a very relaxed and cool dive.  I spotted a tiny baby sweetlips and saw the resident eagle ray a couple of times.  Humphrey, the resident Trigger Fish was about but seemed to be pretty chilled.  I also found another weight!  A day of finding things!

On dry land, kit washed and packed away I met Si in the bar and we grabbed a coke and chatted about the days events.

Later in the evening it was the IE party (newly passed instructors) so we went to Dirty Nelly’s to have a beer to congratulate everyone and then headed home for an earlish night!  It had been a long day and we were both very tired….

Jen

Simon has academics this morning so I booked myself the morning dive boat.  We got down to Crystal around 6.45am and I got my dive kit whilst Simon got my underwater housing & camera ready.

I dove with Katti today, she too had her camera and had a couple of really nice relaxed divesl.  One at ‘White Rock’ and the second dive at ‘Japaneze Gardens’   The visibility was much better today which I was really please at.   We both managed to get some really good footage of a porcupine puffer, moray eel and a huge starry puffa.  Unfortunately we didn’t find the Eagle ray which has been hanging around in Japanese Gardens but felt satisfied with what we saw.

On dry land I bumped into Si, his class had just broken for lunch which was perfect timing, so I ordered a delivery from ‘Zest’ for two fried egg sandwiches with lots of HP sauce on wholewheat baguette and we caught up on our mornings activities.

After lunch, Si was doing confined water with his group, so I dried off my housing and walked up to ‘Deep Down’ to drop it off and bumped into Katti.  We then decided to treat ourselves to a Thai massage which I really needed as my back has been niggly  ..an hour later, feeling relaxed and knot free I walked back to Crystal and read for a while and had the odd visit from a dripping wet Simon when they broke for their loo breaks.

There were a couple of Open Water video’s and a film by one of ‘Deep Downs’ videographer students who’s just completed the course which we had to stay for as there was going to be a presentation and they wanted Simon in the photo.   Si’s in so much demand.

On the way home we came across an accident, a woman laying in the middle of the road unconscious with blood everywhere.  Didnt really know whether to go and help as the majority of people who had stopped were Thai and seemed to have everything in hand. Hopefully she will make a full recovery….

Takeaway food, and an early night!