Koh Lanta: Scuba and Sunflower
Sunday, November 26th, 2006Happy Thanksgiving! Okay, I’m a bit late for that. But still. On turkey day, I was scuba-diving off the coast of Thailand at a place called Koh Haa — and now, I’m officially certified as an open water diver. Wootie woo!
Yeah, it was a really cool experience… Even if at the start, it was pretty nerve-racking and slightly uncomfortable. There’s a lot to deal with, with all the remembering to breathe properly and equalize pressure the right way, and then to do all the safety exercises correctly. Just a lot going on, which makes you breathe more, which depletes your tank faster… But on the fourth (and final) dive of the course, we did one final exercise — and then it was a fun dive. And that’s when it hit me how awesome the experience of being 18 metres (60 feet!) underwater really can be. We just cruised around and checked stuff out — bazillions of all kinds of fish, including a porcupinefish and a scorpionfish (dangerous!), some beautiful anemones and starfish, a sea snake, a moray eel, a nudie branch (yeah, Oscar and Jme, I saw one!), and an underwater cave that was cool to look at, but really dark and thus a bit freaky. Does a giant octopus live in there?
We didn’t find out.
ismateo