If you ever get a chance to scuba dive I highly recommend doing it. Erik and I, and the 3 girls I met on the the way to Koh Samui decided to go do a scuba course over on an island called Koh Tao. This island was absolutely beautiful, even if you aren't diving it's just totally chill and relax. The island itself is quite small, you could probably walk up and down the whole thing in about 45 minutes (may shorter). They only have a couple real main roads, and the rest of the island is just beach front bungalows connected by small trails that you could take a motor bike but nothing bigger. Off the beaches are fishing boats and bright blue water with the most amazing fish.

At first I was a little worried about diving. Swimming 60 feet under the surface with just a tank strapped to my back gave me a little worry, but once I started, I absolutely loved it. The first day is just videos about the equipement and the safety precautions needed for diving. The videos themselves were pretty boring, but our instructor, a woman named Petra from Germany, was absolutely fantastic. The next day, we did shallow dives just to get used to having a tank on your back, getting the breathing down, and equalizing the pressure in your ears so you don't get a splitting headache. We were only in water up to 3 meters deep (the first set of skills like mask clearing and finding your breathing tube if it gets knocked out were done at 1.5 meters so we could stand up if we had problems), but it was still great. The were tiny fish swimming all around me, through my legs and biting my feet, it was great.

The next day we did our first real dives. Only to 12 meters, but that was fine. There were coral reefs at this depths and the most amazing fish. My personal favourite were called the Emperor Angel fish, but there were so many amazing colours down there it was hard to choose. All in all, I ended up doing 5 open water dives. Here is our instructor Dennis, Ramon, a guy for Holland who joined up with our group, me, and a girl named Evalu who has lived on Koh Tao for a month but is originally from Germany.

This is Ramon again, and two of the three girls we were travelling with, Libby and Bronagh.

After spending about 5 days in Koh Tao, we met up with 3 guys from Brighton, and headed over to Koh Pha Ngan to wait for the full moon party (which is today!!!) Our place is absolutely amazing, you have to take a boat to get to it (or an hour and a half walk through jungle), and our huts are intertwined with coconut trees and have a fantastic view of the ocean. We've spent the past 3 days body surfing and watching movies and hanging out at night. The food is great and so is the company. Here's a photo of a some of us at a bar called Eden.

That's all for now, I'll maybe post some more after I have recovered from full moon. Hope all is well for you!!

Cheers,
Drew