James and Cat’s Jazz-tastic Journey!

So as you can tell I passed the course with flying colours, as does everyone, and I am now officially a certified diver.  This means I can dive anywhere in the world to a maximum depth of 18m/59 feet, and enroll in advance and specialist diving courses! Awesome!

So the course: We started with an orientation at 16:30 before our first day.  We had to buy our Padi open water manual, a 400 page book, similar to the old school work books, lots of babble and some questions to go along with it.  Then I met the group I would be diving with, 4 of us in total, although one guy was doing the 3 day course, instead of 3 and a half, so he would only be with us for the pool diving and classroom lessons. So mainly it was me and two Danish guys, the quiet type but really nice when you got something out of them.  We had a chat about what the couse would entail, two classroom sessions, one pool session and 5 open water dives.  We then headed upstairs to watch a 2 hour video, which was basically the first 2 chapters of the maual in visual form. It was really badly made and was obviously an older persons view of what keeps us youngens engaged.  Really bad humour involving big hats and people falling over…gripping stuff.  It basically just went over the basics of diving, and the physics behind water, pressure and oxygen, the basics of the gear involved and what diving was all about.  We were told to not pay too much attention as the video is just a mandatory part of the course, we would get told more details in our classroom sessions and it was all in the book anyway.

Day 1
Started at 9:00 at the dive shop ready and eager to learn, a morning spent in the class room. We were shown all the required equipment, Buoyancy Control Devices, Tanks, Regulators, Weights, Masks and Fins.  We had a quick lesson in how to fit it all together, and the do’s and dont’s; Do turn the air on before you jump in, Don’t throw weights at each other, all the need to know stuff.  After a 2 hour lunch break we were back for some pool time.  We met our dive instructor, a english lad called Adam who had an obsession with the Red Hot Chilli Peppers; Tattoos’, T-Shirts, Swim Shorts, he had it all. We had another quick lesson on how to put the gear together, jumped in to our flattering wet suits and proceeded with the ‘Buddy Checks’ .  Whenever you dive you have to dive with a buddy, for various reasons, safety being the front runner. So each person checks their buddy’s equipment, and you dive close together for the whole dive, and if you die it’s your buddy’s fault.  The buddy check follows a simple plan: BCD, Weights, Releases, Air, Final Ok.  Many people have tried to come up with easy ways to remember this, Padi’s way  is Begin with Review and Friend, it doesn’t make much sense so we were offered these; Bruce willis Ruins/Rocks All Films, Bangkok Women Really Are Fellas and British women really are fat!  Then it was time to commence diving, so we jumped in the pool and it was straight to the shallow end. The padi couse has being designed so you start slowly and build on the skills you learn until you are a diving god, so the first thing we did was to put the regulator (Mouth Piece that gives you the air) in our mouths and stand heads out of the water breathing! One small breath for man…. After conquering breathing, we then steped up to the next level and put our heads underwater, scary stuff.  When Adam was sufficiently pleased with our progress, we did the same thing except with out our mask, that was actually a lot harder, because the instinct is to breathe in through your nose, and if you do that you will almost definitely choke!  Good job Adam is a trained first aider! I am also used to opening my eyes underwater, but I was told it is easier to dive with contact lenses than a prescription mask, as otherwise you would have to leave the mask on the whole time, and look a bit silly. So without the mask the first thing I did when I submerged my head was to open my eyes, then remembering I had contacts in I panicked and what do you do to alleviate panicking?  Take a deep breath!  So I took a deep breath through my nose and got a lung full of water, much to the the amusement of the other guys. Second time round went a lot more smoothly, and I quickly mastered no mask underwater-ness.  Then we sank down under water on to our knees to practice some ‘skills’. These included taking the regulator out of our mouth and then replacing it, flooding and clearing the mask, mask removal and replacement, swimming without masks, no air simulation (Adam’s favorite bit, he turns off our air just for fun!) We did many variations of these skills, as they are apparently essential to diving, except we couldnt really see when we would need these, diving seems to be completly based around safety, even though it is statistically a safer sport then ten pin bowling. FACT!

After mastering the shallow end it was time to enter the big boy leauge and step up to the deep end. We did the same stuff, just practiced the skills and some variations, buddy breathing, changing your regulator for your buddy’s spare, just in case Adam turns off your air again. After spending some time getting used to being underwater is was time to come up again. A quick lesson in how to wash the gear after use and we were done for the day and it was time to retire to the bar, didn’t quite make it that far though, so bed it was.

Day 2
Another 9.00 start, and it was back to the classroom for us, 15 of us in total, our group and the groups a day ahead of us, it was time to learn the nitty gritty stuff, what can go wrong and what to do if it does.  Most people think if you’re underwater and something goes wrong you should get out of the water as quick as possible, these people would be right so that was a relatively short session.  We did learn a little about narcosis though, the narcs. Once you get past 30 metres your air becomes more dense and you breathe in more to maintain a state of alive, while you are taking in more oxygen you also take in more nitrogen as the tank is filled with regular air, around 80 20 nitrogen to oxygen. This added nitrogen can have some crazy effects. Similar to having 5 beers, or 2 joints (thats the offical padi measurment) These effects do however wear off instantly with no ill effects if you ascend only a few metres. Sounds great, drunk with no money on beer and no hangover, someone needs to set up an underwater bar!  The nitrogen can however, give you DCS, De-compression Sickness, the bends if you ascend too quickly! That can kill you, although it never does.  We also had a quick look at how to plan dives properly so you don’t get the dreaded bends, basically don’t stay underwater for too long, all pretty straightforward.  So with all the worst bits out of the way it was time to start diving, that is after lunch. We quickly learned that diving is a lazy mans sport, everything should be done with minimum effort and after lunch, or at least a quick beer. So we met back at the shop at 1 to head out on the boat.
Our first dive site was to be Japanese Gardens, a buoyed of area of the bay of a small island to the north of Koh Tao called Koh Aungnuan. We swam up to the shallow end of the bay and found a sandy spot to sink down and drop to our knees to practice some skills. We started with the old favourite mask removal, and regulator changes, we were getting quite good at these, then moved on to some new ones, fin piovts. This is basically where you lay flat on your face on the sand, and take a really deep breath, you should begin to rise keeping you fins on the floor, then when you get to around 45 degrees, you start to breathe out and you start to sink again, you carry on doing this so you start to pivot about your fins, up and down. Very difficult to master at first as even subtle changes in your lungs greatly affect your buoyancy. We spent some time practicing this one as it is very important to scuba diving. The aim being that you solely use your lungs as a buoyancy device so you are not constantly swimming up or down and using your hands, that way you use up less air and can stay under the water for longer.  After several pivots we moved on to hovering, a similar exercise in breathing but completely suspended in mid water. Not as easy as it sounds.
When we were done with our skills we went for a swim around, going to a depth of around 6 metres. It sounds backwards but it is actually easier to dive at greater depths than it is in shallower waters, this is all due to pressure and pressure changes.  At 10 metres, the pressure compared to surface pressure is double, and at 20 metres it is triple. So when you move from 0 to 10 metres you are doubling pressure but when you move from 10 to 20 metres you do not go through the same change in pressure.  What does this actually mean?  Well, when you’re diving you need to equalise, this is when the pressure that builds up inside your ears needs to be released, similar to when you fly or go to high altitudes, you feel the pop in your ears, underwater it is a lot more intense, and you need to clear your ears.  If you descend to quickly without equalising it really is quite painful, and the only way to get rid of it without damaging your ears is to ascend, then equalise, then descend again. From 0 to 10 metres you need to equalise once a metre, roughly.  From 10 to 20 its around once every 2 metres. So when you are diving shallow waters it is more likely you will suffer from some equalisation problems, as I did. I would be swimming along focusing on my buoyancy and trying to keep on the same level as the instructor and I would see a really cool fish, and forget what I was doing and take a really deep breath, that would cause me to go up, then I would panic and breathe even deeper, going further up. I then let out all my air to get back down to the sea bed and descend too quickly leading to pain in my ears, causing me to breathe in deeply and ascend again. It really was a vicious cycle. Eventually I got the hang of it, but I didnt dare look at the fish for fear of losing concentration, just listen to the bubbles and think about breathing.

Day 3
Had the morning off to relax, then at 12:30 it was time to start some real diving. We headed off in a taxi to the pier and jumped on the medium sized boat.  Our first dive was to be a site called Green Rock, down to a depth of 12 metres.  We went down a buoy line and swam around, saw quite a few amazing fish and had a really good dive. Really got the hang of the buoyancy thing and didn’t have any problems at all, felt like we’d being doing it for years. After 40 minutes underwater we were running low on air, so it was time to jump back on the boat and head off to our second dive site, Mango bay. We went over a few skills and had to do a CESA ascent. This is where you come up from the bottom in just one breath. Quite easy really, then is was down to some sand for some more hovering, pivots and mask removals. Then another swim around and some more fish. The last skill we came to do was a buddy breathing ascent. This is where you simulate being out of air and use your buddy’s spare regulator and come up together. We stopped on the sand to prepare ourselves, had a look around, and to my dismay, I couldn’t find my buddy!  Yoko, the dive master in training, who has spent over 100 hours underwater, had somehow lost us in one of the easiest dive sights to navigate. I found it very amusing but our instructor wasn’t impressed.  Yoko’s punishment was to wash and pack all our gear ready for the next day. Apart from that we had a really good day, but we were all shattered by the time we got back to base at around 1700 so a quick dinner then off to bed for an early rise the next morn.

Day 4
We had to be at the base at 7:20, for two morning dives. So it was up to the pier and on the big boat, and out to a dive spot called South West Pinnacle, surprise surprise, it is South West of the island and a massive pinnacle! We went down to 18 metres, down to the sea floor and swam around the pinnacle and a few smaller ones and then up round the pinnacle to the top which sat at around 5 metres, then back to the buoy line and up again. We were down for around 50 mintes and had a really good dive, saw lots of angel fish and butterfly fish along with loads of other small ones. We had all really mastered the buoyancy thing by now so were really focused on what we could see and where we were going.

Then it was back on the boat to the last dive of the course. White rock, you guessed it, a big white rock underwater.  Again we had a few last skills to do, nothing new here, just a mask removal and some hovering and some pivots to finish off.  Then we went for a swim around to see what the fish were up to, and we found hiding behind some rocks two stingrays, each with a wing span of around 50cm, purple and light pink in colour. They had a look at us but didn’t like what they saw so swam off. It was really amazing to see them, it really is as if they are flying underwater, absolutely amazing.

After filling in a quick exam and doing some paper work I was awarded my diver’s log book and diver’s card, and I am now offically a certified diver!

We hung around on the island for a couple more days, just chilling out… I had done a lot of this while James was out diving, but a bit more is always good!

So back in Bangkok and time for our spending spree!  We spent stupid amounts of money!  It was ACE!
Our first port of call was the HUGE weekend market where James got some Converse, I got some appropriate cover up clothing for india and we both bought some wicked T-shirts.  The on to MBK the ultra swathe shopping centre in the heart of Siam.  I bought a really cool bag that I’d seen last time we were in the BKK, James got a 30gb iPod and I got a new phone (the Motorola V8.. it’s swish) to replace the stolen one.  Then back to Th Khao San and James got a really awesome pair of shoes that he’d seen before and hadn’t forgotten about.  We got back to our hotel room laden with bags and very achy feet!
The next day we went about sending our new purchases home, along with various junk we’ve acquired along the way that we wanted to get rid of… James’ Padi Manual, I had some books I wanted to keep, clothes we weren’t wearing and various pairs of shoes between us.  We filled up a box with 8kg of stuff!!! My bag is a lot lighter now, but somehow James’ seems to have got heavier!

So after two days of materialism we got an early night in preparation for our flight to Mumbai the next day.. our flight left at 9:40am, we had to be at the airport two hours before so we booked the bus for 6am.
At 6.05am we were awoken by a loud knock at the door…. the alarm I had set the night before had failed to wake us up, but the irate Thai man shouting that we had to get on the bus now managed where technology had failed.  So we scrambled out of bed, thankfully we had packed the night before, threw some clothes on and were out the door.
Into the minibus and both of us were feeling a little rough, most of the journey was spent in silence until, when approaching the airport, James said “I want to go back to bed, do you think we’ll be allowed to change our flight?”  My response was sharp…. he knew that I wasn’t looking forward to going back to India and to joke about staying in Thailand wasn’t funny in the slightest.  The silence returned.
When we arrived at the airport I just couldn’t help myself…. and asked James if he was being serious about staying, because I really wanted to but didn’t think we could afford to change the flights.  Despite our late rise, the bus still managed to get us there half an hour before the quoted arrival time; we decided there was only one way to find out if we could afford it… find out how much it would cost.
So we went and found the Jet Airways desk and explained to the lady that our flight was at 9.40 but we wanted to change it to fly to Delhi on the 1st July.  “Sorry” She said “you can only change the date, not the destination.”  This didn’t put us off, we’d need a few extra days to travel up to Delhi from Mumbai, but we could manage that, so after plugging in different dates we finally found one when there was space for us to go.  Our next question, of course, was how much would it cost to change the flight especially at such sort notice….. her next words were music to our ears… “no charge Miss, it’s a free service”.

Well, that was that… so we’re still in Bangkok, out flight has been rearranged to the 25th June, which leaves us a week in India and another 3 weeks in Thailand.  We think we may head into Laos or Malaysia, but as yet we have no fixed plans… we only seem to ignore them anyway!

So that’s what we’ve been up to… we’ll let you know when we decide what we’re doing and where we’re headed.

Much Love
xxx

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 4:33 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.