9 May

Advanced Open Diving Course starts today! We get to choose 3 specialties and have 2 compulsory ones namely, navigation and deep diving. All of us chose peak buoyancy, and night dive as our options. The last one, there were variations. Dick, Greg (from Scotland) and I chose photography, while bang, yauhong, renjun chose naturalis (looking at fish and identifying them, and jasper chose multi level computer(learning how to use diving computer).

Off we went for the first 2 dives today. The water looked calm today so... phew. But i still took 2 seasick pills just in case. Suddenly, the boatman shouted, 'strong wind and wave 30 minute.' There, far in the horizon, we could seen a stretch of dark clouds creeping towards us. OH no... bad weather again. Strong winds, pouring rain. we were all freezing! Fortunately, it passed as quickly as it came. So we had nice clear waters once again.

We learnt how to control buoyancy just by breathing, so we can hover just above the corals or ground without touching them. There was also the upside down hover so that our head was just a few centimetres above the ground. That was quite challenging. Bang had some trouble and he kept banging his head on the sea floor.

Besides learning how to control buoyancy and navigation, Jasper and I also had a great day. We saw parrot fish, grouper, butterfly fish, puffer fish, barracudas, and other commmon small fish. Yoo hoo!!! Best day. THe other day I saw a really small octopus under a rock. I still hope to see a trigger fish and the one every divers yearns to see- the gigantic whale shark. THere have been many sightings, but we haven't seen them yet. Hope we can see them on our final few dives tommorow.

3 dives tmr- deep dive where we go to 30m, photography dive where I learn to take the best shots and the night dive. I'm beginning to love Koh Tao. I feel so at home here. We know all the shops, we recognise everybody, we love planet scuba and the people there, we love yang's kitchen where we have cheap and good meals, and best of all we get to see beautiful people, fish and scenery. Man... can I not leave this place, cos it'll only mean i've to get back to studying...

well... i'll just enjoy my final 3 dives and shopping.

Nitrox Addict