A Couple’s Journey

Ok so there was really no shark attack but I got your attention didn’t I!! So we are on our second dive of the day and we are descending and what is right below us? You guessed it a shark. I am franticly trying to get down faster so I can have a better look, at this point I am maybe 6 meters above it. So I finally get down to maybe 2 meters above the darn thing and it swims off. In the mean time I am trying to signal to Jared and Brian (another DMT here) that I see a shark and for them to look down. It took them a bit but they finally joined my enthusiams of seeing the shark. About the shark it was a black tip reef shark maybe 3 meters long but man did it have a nice size body, nice and fat. Must have just had lunch, thanfully not a scuba diver! Well that was the highlight of my day. No whale sharks today sniff, sniff! Maybe another day. We also saw some big baracuda and all the normal stuff (angle fish, banner fish, grouper, jacks, travelly). Just another wonderful day in Koh Tao. But I would like the sun to come out soon. It is not raining today which is an improvement from the last 4 days but it would be nice to see some sun! I mean really I am on an island paradise, right? Ok enough complaining. I mean I am on a 2 year vacation, what is there to complain about.

We have already started our planning for our next adventure in a month when we finally leave this island. We will let you know where we are off to next when it gets closer. Tomorrow we are going on another Visa run and we have decided to stay over night in Chumpon so we can get some KFC. Ok Jared really wants Starbucks but we would have to go all the way to Bangkok for that so KFC will have to do for a taste of home!! He is quite upset about that.  Maybe Nate, Malcolm, Jade or Jenna can go for us and tell us how it is!  Or anybody really, it has been almost two months since our last fix!!!! 

Okay I know we just blogged this morning however this afternoon we went diving!  Low and behold we swam with two Whale Sharks!!!  One was about 3m and the other a little bigger than 4m!!!  We are so excited to say the least, it definetly has made the whole Thailand trip worth it!  Anyway we will post pictures soon, one of the girls that came with us took pictures!!!  What a perfect afternoon!

Well I know it has been a bit since we last posted but not a lot has been going on. It has been raining here like mad so we have been making good use of the hammock. Watch a lot of movies and have just been relaxing. We did however go diving on wednesday and got our wreck speciality, which makes four specialty certs so far and we are still working on our Dive Master cert. We did our wreck dives on the Unicorn which was nice since you only have a couple min bottom time at 40 meters it takes a couple of dives to see the whole thing. We have now done 4 dives on it and it will still take a couple more before we actually see the whole thing. However this time I got down to 41.3 meters and Maryanne got 43.2 meters due to having to tie off our line to the railing of the boat. Visibility this time wasn’t all that good but hey we are done with that speciality. Okay the specialities are important because if we get five speciality courses we are certified as a Master Diver (MSD) which is the highest non-professional rating we can get. So if we decided to work it looks better on us if we are both MSD’s and Dive Master (DM) which is our professional rating. Not to mention the courses we are taking go to just making us better divers and will come in handy when we go to other places. Sometimes we might go to a place that has a wreck at 36m, well if we don’t have the deep diver and wreck diver we wouldn’t be able to explore it. Well we could but if something happened then insurance wouldn’t cover it since is beyond what we have been trained. So since we have been trained now we are covered. Okay it might not be cool to some of you but it is pretty darn exciting for us!!! At this point thought I would love to continue and become an instructor, but I have to have been diving for 6 months, so maybe later. The guys that have been doing our deep and wreck training are the same technical divers from earlier blogs (Wilco and Ayesha), unfortunately they are leaving for August so I can’t do the Technical Diving Basic course 🙁 So much to do, so little time! Just like life! Just as well or we would never leave Koh Tao! But we are bound and determined to make a break from here and see more of the world!

So sorry to you readers that we aren’t all that exciting at the moment, but like Maryanne said at the beginning of this post (yes a joint effort went into writing this) it has been raining 🙁 We got another Visa run coming up in a few days… Our last one which will cover us till the end of August. Maybe I will let Maryanne ride the bike in the rain, then I am sure we will have something cool to post LOL

Again we know we are bad about posting pictures so below are a couple pictures of our new place that we so love.. Hot shower!! What a change… Still a manual toilet but that is not really a big deal once you learn how to use it.

So we have been in Koh Tao for over a month now and I have not driven the motorbike once, but yesterday I was determined to.  After a long discussion with Jared he reluctently gave me the keys before he took off for a fun dive giving me hours of time to do what I wanted to do. So after I was done with my class I got on the motorbike, and was off. Oh wait first I have to tell you that someone else had to start it for me first… 🙂  So now I am off. I got off to a great start.  I was sailing along so happy I was finally in control.  But as luck would have it.. Everything did not go as planned.. Or not as I planned I guess it was pretty much as Jared had planned.  I tried to stop so I did not run right in to a bush..  Dont know how that thing got in front of me. It just came out of no where! I tell you those things move fast.  I put my foot down to help slow me down. Yes I really did this!  And well feet dont work as well as breaks as I found out the hard way.. Dont worry everyone I just have a small abrassion on one foot it is really not that bad. 

Jared here – Unfortunately Maryanne and I have been a bit sick lately which really sucked as we were supposed to meet Kabbi in Koh Samui (a nearby island) Maryanne has a sore throat and I have a sinus cold.  Well after Maryanne’s dive it has gotten worse and well as for me…. Okay now they tell you in your first diving course that anyone can end the dive as it is ultimately up to the individual whether they will dive or not.  So as a divemaster we need to reassure them that there is nothing wrong with not diving if you don’t feel safe, comfortable, sick, etc  Well apparently that applies to EVERYONE!  So yesterdays dive, I felt fine in the morning, I could breathe well and had energy to do my morning workout.  So I thought I would go diving.  They were going to a new site so I was naturally very excited.  Well as soon as I jumped in I had a little pain in my head, but I tried to ignore it.  It was a relatively shallow dive so I could do it, so I thought.  6m down I was in a lot of pain, but the coral and the fish were amazing.  So far the best dive site yet.  However after about 24 min the pain was too bad to tolerate, man my dumb butt should have stopped diving right away.  I came up and had some blood and a bad headache.  Apparently some capillariars in my sinus broke causing the blood.  You would think after 50 dives I would have been smart enough to just stay out of the water.  So now a day later my head hurts as well as having a lot of pressure on my sinuses.  So if you have a head cold stay out of the freakin water!!!  I so hate when I have to learn the hard way!  Sorry Kabbi my bad we couldn’t come see you 🙁  Althought on the bright side I can use this story to help teach the new divers what not to do.  I am out of the water till probably wed cause of this damn thing!!  At least I have a nice hammock to lay in see pic below! 🙂

Ok so here are some pictures

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Well today me and Jared did our last two deep dives down to 40 meters, on a wreck called the unicorn, for our deep dive speciality course.   I had an absolutely marvolous time as I was “Narked” (Nitrogen Narcosis) for a good portion of the dive.  The first dive, I was actually laughing out loud.  So loud even that the other people I was diving with could hear me.  So for about 5 mins I was in pure utopia.  It was amazing.   Jared was not so lucky and he did not feel a thing.  It was a great dive, the wreck was massive and the visibilty was pretty good.  Loads of Jacks and Baracuda!!

 The second dive was just the same for me.   I was as happy as a clam.   Jared’s went the other way and he was very paranoid, I will let him tell you his story. The wierd things that go through your brain when you are “Narked” is just astonishing.  I was thinking to myself on the dive, why is Jared diving up there it is so much fun down here!  Well he was only a foot above me and the visiablity was really not all that good on the second dive so exactly what was more fun than where I was.. Oh that is right cuz I was “Narked”!   

So needless to say I had a wonderful time at the wreck the question is though did I even see it.. Or was it all just in my head!!!! Hmmm I may have to think about that for a bit.

 Alright Jared here, my second dive was rough.  Well for one the Air tasted really different.  The boat that we went out on, the MV Trident, has a compressor on board that filled our second tank.  It was actually pretty sweet tasting, if air can tasted sweet!  Well when I got down to 40m it of course seemed like I had bad air, so I was worried about that.  At one point I lost track of one of the people in our group and I thought he was lost.  I looked at both instructors and was shocked that they didn’t seem to care he was “lost” (lost as in I couldn’t see him lost)  Then I worried the regulator was going to fall out of my mouth so I held it in my mouth, sometimes with both hands.  Occassionally I pressed the purge button by accident sending lots of air into my mouth which made a lot of bubbles!!  So that freaked me out.  Then I look over at Maryanne and she is pretending she is an airplane underwater!!  I would “lose” her occassionally too.  Then I constantly was checking all my guages, way more than normal!  Plus it was cold, etc, etc.  Man it was a tough dive and was happy to be going up when we did.  I did go into Decompression on the dive, but lucky it passed as we went up and didn’t have to do a longer safety stop at 5m than normal.  Although for part of the course we had to switch to the “drop tank” regulator and breath from that during our safety stop.  I didn’t mind it a bit as it was 100% O2 and helped me relax!  Anyway it was a great experience once done.  The boat we dove from was plenty big and the Technical divers we went with were fantastic.  They are going to teach our Wreck Specialty course!!!  So we get to head back to the Unicorn next Thursday, mostly cause Maryanne wants to get Narked again lol!!  Just kidding, it will be cheaper to do the course here, which we will need when diving the Wrecks in Micronesia.  Anyway loads of fun.  Oh the MV Trident was the boat that found the SS Lagoto, in the Gulf of Thailand.  It was a US Sub that was sank almost 60 years ago.  Just a piece of trivia for you guys.  Our thanks to Wilco and Ayesha for a wonderful dive!!

Ok so as everyone knows that has been reading this. Me and Jared are working on our Dive Master Cert. One of the things that we have to get signed off on this is called Equipment exchange or as some people call it Stress test.. How this is done, you have to swap gear (BCD, Fins and Mask) With someone eles while underwater doing buddy breathing while Neutrally Bouyant. For those of you that dont know what buddy breathing is, it is where two people breath out of the same regulator. Take two breaths pass it to the other and so on. All while changing gear while trying to not float to the surface. Which is by far not the easiest thing to do. After several attempts and lots of water being drank by all. We finally finished. Me and my partner were the last ones done. Thanks to me of course because I was the one drinking all the water try to fight for air. Jared and his partner finished right before us.. So dont let him fool you with he was not last. He was not that far behind. Jared had a very small french women as his partner. Talk about a site, Jared in a pink mask, pink BCD and pink fins. Where was the camera when you needed it. To bad I was busy swapping gear with someone else. So this is what I think of this test. Pass or not.. Why in the world would you breath off of one regulator when you have 4 good ones. This is just crazy. I did feel good when it was done though. And as weird as it was after several failed attempts when we finally did it, it was so easy. We had no idea what the problems were all the other times cuz we just clicked and it was done. Pool water tastes like crap!!!

Okay so now that exams are over we have decided to branch out and try some new things!  One of them being a Nitrox course which basically allows us to stay underwater longer.  You can’t go too deep but at least we can do a nice long 26m dive!  So we already finished the course work for that thankfully now we just have to do the diving portion.  Awhile back we blogged about attending a Technical Diving Lecture and trying out the gear at the pool.  The Tec Divers do something called Wreck Wed, were they take you out with normal gear to dive a wreck at around 40m.  So we chatted with them and since we had already planned to get our Deep Diving Certification, we worked it out to combine the Wreck Diving to count for our last 2 deep dives to get the cert.  Sweet huh?!?!  I think we also might do the Wreck Diving Course, which will be 4 Wreck dives.  Basically we are going to be doing some specialty course so we can get our Master Scuba Diver rating and then at the end of our course we will also be Divemasters.  Mostly cause some people confuse the two so if we get both ratings then it doesn’t matter what they call us lol.  Alright that isn’t the real reason, just a bonus.  The real reason is that when we get to Micronesia, there are lots of Wrecks, Deep Dives and Drift Diving.  So they are certs that we are going to need anyway.  Another one we are looking at is the Equipment Specialty, so we know how to service our equipment and just have more all around knowledge. 

Now I know you all really enjoyed the stories of me getting attacked by wildlife, really thanks for the support!!  However friends of ours found the nice little place to stay, so we checked it out and fell in love.  Mostly cause of the hot shower, frig, microwave and big soft bed.  So we decided to move!  Last night was our first night, it was amazing.  Woke up this morning and had a bowl of cereal on our big porch that has a table and chairs.  Since we are up on the hill there was a nice little breeze.  Now with the frig we can eat at home  more often which will help with costs.  Okay not like things are really expensive but it is nice not to always go out to eat.  We even got a cat out of it! It seems like every bungalow comes with an animal.  Our friends Caroline and Ryan have a dog and we have a cute cat! 

So life is awesome at the moment, granted I am very glad we are doing this trip.  However I do wish I would have done this a few years ago!  I dont think I ever want to go back to a real job!  Just kidding mom, I promise to grow up in a few years!!  Miss you all!

Maryanne is diving this afternoon, but I am sure she sends her love and may add to this post later.

Okay so it has been a bit since our last post…sorry!  Well we are almost through with all our course work as far as lectures and exams go! Yippie  We have passed all the exams that we have taken so far.  I have already finished but Maryanne has to take 3 exams.  The night before those exams Maryanne had a bit too much to drink.  It was open mic night at the bar and a bunch of the girls where up singing.  We stayed pretty late as the cheering section, but Maryanne and the other girls got a little carried away.  It was a great thought.  So Maryanne was pretty much useless the next day.  So while I went to class with a little hangover, someone else stayed in bed!  We also missed a day where we were supposed to do a proper map of a dive site.  The night before the mapping dive, we were begged to come on an all day sailing trip to sail rock.  Apparently they were going to cancel the trip due to a few last minute cancellations.  So we decided to go along, were we glad we did!  Sail Rock is a dive site about 2 hours away between Koh Tao and Koh Phanagan sp? We pretty much saw all the same things that we do on closer dive sites, but there are way more fish and they are bigger.  Deb was our DM and made the experience even better it was such a relaxing dive! We saw some massive Grouper and man can they move really fast when they want to!  There were big schools of barcuda that circled us and some giant baracuda.  There was even a tall chimney swim through that was fantastic.  We did take pictures so we will get those posted soon.  So we dove that site twice and then headed to another site.  The morning was very beautiful, but then the rain and wind came in the afternoon.  Boy was it miserable, all of us couldn’t wait to get back underwater. 

Other than that we have just been relaxing and hanging out with friends.  Last night about 20 DMT’s (Divemaster Trainees) and some instructors went for bowling.  It was a good chance to meet some of the new DMT’s and just get to know people a little better.  This morning we were in the pool just doing a skill circuit, basically we practice demonstrating all 20 Open Water skills as we would when assisting OW students.  We pretty much have to make them all look super easier and point out the important parts to the students.  I am so glad we were in the pool!  Yesterday we went on a small boat in choppy water to do rescue assessments.  Trying to rescue an unconscious diver is a lot of work, we were so exhausted afterwards!!! 

This still beats a day at the office!!  Gotta go pick Maryanne up from her massage and go have a beer!! LOL  life is good! 🙂  Miss you all!

Okay here are a few things we have been up to.  The Technical Divers on the island have partnered with Buddha View to show us the gear and allow us to try it.  They are even incorporating our Deep Diving course with a chance to dive our last 2 dives of the course to see a wreck at 40m!!  Yeah so after trying on the gear I think we are game to try it!!  It was so cool.  Especially if we can get the Nitrox course done then we might even have twin Nitrox!!!  Yeah we are excited.  Okay for you non-divers Nitrox basically allows us to go down for a longer period of time!!! 

Like I reported early we did go to Myanmar and here is the proof!!  LOL  (Yes mom this mean Laugh out Loud)

We also passed our first round of exams, only 6 more to go.  Today we did an additional course which allows us to legally provide 100% O2 which some countries require.  Anyway it was a good class, worth having I think if we do decide to get a job as Divemasters!

Oh Maryanne started getting a little sick (collective sigh from you all for her, since I know you feel more sorry for her than me by evidence of some of your recent comments!!!) 

Last night we played in another Texas Hold’em Tournament, yep you are looking at the Champ!  Well if not click on a picture of me and then you will!!  Yep won 14000 Baht, enough to pay for some of our recent gear!!  Well that is it for now, gotta run and study for tomorrow’s test!!  This one I think will suck! 

Anyway miss you all, hugs and kisses!!!  Maryanne says hi, in a sickle voice, I think she is just trying to get sympathy….. What What yes dear I am coming…… 🙂

Ok so before all you guys start freaking out cuz you told us not to go there. This place is all set up for this stuff.   This was no Rambo retake! So our evening started with a night boat to Chumpon from Koh Tao. No problem,  We arrived on the boat at 9 which gave us plenty of time to get a bed.. If you get there late no bed for you.   I slept like a baby on the boat like always, but Jared on the other hand was awake the whole way.  He said the boat broke down a couple of times through out the night.. Hmm I don’t seem to remember that!   All is well we made it to our destination.  Now I must say if you are going to travel from Koh Tao to Chumpon the night boat is the way to go. Cheap and a very comfy bed.   I believe it is more comfortable then the bed we have in our little bungalow.   So we make it to port and off we go into a nice van with AC, what luxury.  It is amazing what we take for granted.   It was a 2 hour trip in a van with a crazy driver!  He seemed not to know what side of the road he was suppose to be on. It was crazy we were going up and down hills like mad the roads were curvy as hell and all kinds of blind spots but there he was driving on the wrong side.   What a ride! We just kept bouncing from one side of our seats to the other!  But we made it safely. Maybe a little queasy from the ride but safe none the less. So we get to customs in Thailand check out and get on a very small boat. Not to bad so far. On the way people are waving to us like crazy. I mean 10 white people on a boat we don’t stick out at all right?  Well this goes on for a while with guys waving, blowing kisses this sort of thing. All is fine. Until we see this nice little kid on his porch waving at us. We do the friendly thing of waving back and what does he do. Grab his toy automatic gun and point it at us. Well lets just say I don’t want to see that kid in 10years. 🙂   We make it to Myanmar and go from the pier straight to customs. On the way to the customs office we have people trying to sell us things like normal, now I would not normally even put this in here, but it was not that they were trying to sell us things what I found was funny it was what they were selling.  “Whiskey, Cigarette, and Viagra”   They keep chanting like a broken record.  Cheap Cheap.  Well none of us bought anything which I think upset them a little.  We made it back to Thailand checked back in with Customs. Back to the pier and on to the high speed boat to Koh Tao.. Now let me explain something here. There is a big difference between the high speed boat and the non-high speed boat. What took us 7 hours there and only took us 1 1/2 hours on the way back. What a difference that is!

Jared’s thoughts – Okay don’t really have any, Maryanne pretty much said it all.  Except two bits, one the Myanmar people look a little like Thais and two we can pass for Swedish people in Myanmar.  How awesome is that, “YA I am from Sweden”!  Anyway we are happy to be back to Koh Tao.  The next two weeks will be a little rough since we have lectures and exams for our Divemaster course.  We have three exams tomorrow, wish us luck. 

Oh on a side note, a couple of days ago we attended a Technical Wreck Diving seminar which was quite good.  A few days later they came to the Dive school with their gear and explained how it worked and let us try it out in the pool!  So Maryanne and I gave it a try.  Feels quite weird to have twin tanks on.  They had us do some out of air drills, so we could see what it was like to have to reach behind us and shut off one of the tanks and then swap to the other mouth piece.  It was really cool!  They offer a one day wreck dive experience, going to 40 – 45m so I think after we going through the Nitrox course next week, we will give that a shoot. Anyway I will get pictures posted soon so you can see us in all that gear!