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104: Life after Ko Tao

Monday, March 13th, 2006

Looks like I have to face the facts and leave Ko Tao sooner than later 😉
My Japan trip is approaching fast and I haven’t even read up about it..

Actually I had several trip changes recently starting with the decision to cancle/postpone the trip to Cambodia due to lack of time. It was a difficult decision since Angkor Wat is supposed to be awesome and I really wanted to go there but over the past three month I have realised that the speedy gonzales approach of travelling isnt my thing. I enjoy staying at places for a wee while to “soak up the atmosphere” as they say. Rushing through a country and being mostly on the move is ok if I don’t like the places I visit but once I find a nice spot its “all engines stop” and RELAX! 🙂

Well Ko Tao is definitely a RELAX place 🙂

So I cancled the trip to Cambodia and because of that I wouldnt travel into Vietnam either. Vietnam was only supposed to be Saigon anyway for 5-6 days. Saigon because that’s where my next flight leaves from (to get to Hong kong). I could have travelled to Saigon from thailand but I chose to add the extra few days to the Island stay and changed the departure airport for Hong Kong to Bangkok now.

I’m sure I will come back to SE Asia sooner than later also because I want to travel through Vietnam properly for a month or so and north-south Vietnam and up to cambodia then over to thailand for a nice beach is a very good trip 🙂 I leave it for next time 😉

So I’m quite pleased that I can hang around here for a bit longer and just have to get back to Bangkok to catch my flight to Hong Kong on the 23rd, easy 🙂

So what’s next?
Well, the deeper waters around Ko Tao are a bit murky at the moment (prob. due to full moon) so I have not done any diving for the last 2 days. I did some snorkelling instead which is always nice 🙂 Also I thought about going over to Similan Islands before heading off to Hong Kong since diving there is supposed to be awesome but they had a bunch of small quakes over the last few days so its an area I rather avoid just now 😉

The current plans then are to head off in the next few days to go to ko phan ngan and ko samui afterwards. Samui because I want to do a trip to Ang Tong? Marine Park near Samui.. supposed to be nice there.

Well.. 10 days left in Thailand (and I’m very upset about this) so I need to make the best of it!

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103: Swimming with Sharks

Monday, March 13th, 2006

At last.. it took two weeks of looking out for sharks during my dive trips (without success)
but today I went snorkelling at Shark Bay and about 200m off the beach I found 8-10 Black Top Sharks below me – Magic! 😀

The water depth was between 1.5 and 3m. The sharks were circling the area close to the ground. The were younger ones of about 80cm I reckon and the biggest ones were probably between 1.5m and 2m? Difficult to tell partly because everything looks bigger under water..

I swam mostly 5-6m away from them but also got closer (or rather the shark came closer to me) to maybe 3m or so.. I was told the black tip sharks are pretty harmless so I was not concerned about being too close to them but I did make sure to not to get too close nevertheless 😉

Did some “free diving” (holding my breath) at the “deeper” water (the 3m stretch that is;-) but I’m crap at it and don’t think I got more than 30 seconds max at a time;-) Gotta work on that.. Still nice to follow the sharks around down there even if it was just for a few seconds.

The water temperature at Shark Bay was about 28C-30C like on most dive sites around Ko tao though when I dived down to the sharks (which was only about 2.5-3m) the temperature dropped noticeably (actually quite refreshing;-) and visibility got a bit better too..

A good day.

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102: Ko Tao – Diving

Monday, March 13th, 2006
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101: Ko Tao Pics

Monday, March 13th, 2006
I added a few pictures from Ko Tao to flickr. Not much considering that I have been on Ko Tao for two weeks now but I have been mostly underwater diving and that camera isn't all that waterproof and whilst ... [Continue reading this entry]

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100: Ko Tao – The Island

Sunday, March 12th, 2006
Guess it's time to do a bit of bloggin again, especially since it's gonna be blog 100 ;-) So lets talk a bit about Ko Tao then... It's a nice relaxed Island for a start, a magnitude better than Ko Samui ... [Continue reading this entry]

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99: PADI AOW Certified

Monday, March 6th, 2006
I've finished the PADI Advanced Open Water Dive Course yesterday. It was pretty easy and not too much theory as compared to the Open Water Course. (More hands-on diving) There were five "Speciality" Dives to do, 3 were mandatory plus two ... [Continue reading this entry]

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98: More Dive Training

Friday, March 3rd, 2006
03/03/06 I signed up for the Advanced Open Water Dive Course which starts tomorrow. It allows me to dive deeper than the 18m and also do night dives etc but it was mostly a economic decision to do this than that ... [Continue reading this entry]

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97: First Fun Dives

Friday, March 3rd, 2006
Did two fun dives today at sites around Ko Tao (Twins and White Rock). This were the first dives after I had finished my PADI Open Water course so it was quite exciting to be able to just dive, float ... [Continue reading this entry]

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96: PADI OW Certified

Thursday, March 2nd, 2006
02/03/06 A few days of classroom learning, pool sessions, open water (sea) diving, buoyancy control, mask clearing, and out-of-air emergency ascents etc plus a sh*t load of PADI manuals reading I now know my dive gear in and out, know ... [Continue reading this entry]

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95: Koh Tao

Monday, February 27th, 2006
Made it to Koh Tao :-) The sleeper train was much better this time. Had a aircon lower bunk since the fan beds were all sold out but it was ok (not freezing as expected). The train left at 19:15 and ... [Continue reading this entry]

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