Now’s as Good a Time as Any

Beach or Bust

August 7th, 2007 by Greg

From Chiang Mai I was determined to get to Koh Tao in as little time as possible. I even hoped I could avoid a night in Bangkok, but that wasn’t in the cards. The bus journey was longer than expected and didn’t end at the centralized bus station I thought it would, so by the time I got into town it was well into the evening. I got a bed for the night at the same guest house I had stayed in and enjoyed my first time through. The next day I caught an afternoon bus down to Chumphon, and then an overnight ferry to Koh Tao.

The overnight boat was a new experience in travel, basically a cargo ship with a reed mat laid out on the top deck and a long, rubber pillow for everyone to share. A flimsy tarp was our only protection from the elements. Needless to say, sleeping on this boat (which left at about 11:00pm) was restless at best.

Arriving at about 5:00 am, Koh Tao was still asleep. Fortunately there were a couple taxis waiting at the docks and one took me to the dive resort at which I had booked accommodation and a dive course. Wanting to have all the options of diving in Southeast Asia available to me, I had come to Koh Tao to do my Advance Open Water certification which would allow me the full range of depths at recreational dive sites. However, no one was around except for a little old Thai man cleaning in the beach-front restaurant and about 30 dogs sleeping on every chair and table. He beckoned me to a free couch, and made a motion like I should get some sleep. I was happy to comply.

Around 7:30 I was awakened by the sounds of activity around me, as the various workers had begun their day and were preparing the restaurant and facilities for the day. They must have been used to people arriving as I did, because they seemed unsurprised to see me and were quick to smile when I caught their eyes. Eventually the reception opened and they put me in a course starting that day. I wasn’t sure about diving after my lack of sleep, but they explained that the Full Moon Party on Koh Pha Ngan had just happened, and there would be a massive influx of people the next day. If I started a class today there would be three of us. Tomorrow there could be a dozen or more. I opted for today.

I settled in my room, changed my clothes, had some breakfast, and met up with my dive group. My instructor was a friendly Australian guy who’d been diving and living on Koh Tao for a long time, and my fellow students were an Israeli guy about my age and a 17 year old Dutch kid who’d just finished his Open Water the previous day. Our morning was a relaxed introduction to the new types of dives we’d be doing that day, a deep dive and a computer-assisted multi-level dive. Both dives would be taking place at what is said to be the best spot on Koh Tao, Chumphon Pinnacle, which is known for the many shark sightings. I’d never seen a real shark in the wild before, so I was very excited.

We took the boat out to the spot, got ready, and got in the water. Our first dive was the deep dive, where you go down to 30 meters/100 feet to experience the depth for the first time. No sooner had we touched down on the sand at 30 meters when a 6 foot-long reef shark came swimming along withing about 5 feet of us to see what we were doing. Reef sharks are known as some of the most docile towards humans, and attacks are rare if ever, but it was still quite a thrill. After a few minutes at the bottom we had a swim around the site, and saw quite a few more sharks as well as many other fish, eels, and colorful corals.

The next dive was similar, though this time we used a dive computer to calculate exactly how long we could stay at each depth, and vary between three different ones. Again we saw a lot of sharks and beautiful fish, and I could see why it was considered the best site around. Much better than the spots I’d been in Vietnam, though to be fair I was busy doing skills and tests underwater when I was there.

After a day of diving and so little sleep, I could barely keep my eyes open by the end of the day. I had a quick dinner with my course mates, and went to bed very early. We had another full day ahead of us, and had to be in the classroom again in the early morning.

Our next class was even easier and shorter, and we went over the dives for the day. The first would be underwater navigation, followed by fish identification, and finally a night dive. A short boat trip later and we were in the water ready to do the first dive, underwater navigation.

I was partnered up with the Israeli guy, and we had to take turns navigating a square with a compass while the other counted kick cycles to determine the distance on each side. The second half of the dive had us following a map of the dive site we had drawn on our slate, and using a compass and recognition of the ocean floor, we were to make our way around the site and return to the boat when our air was at a certain level. Now I still don’t know how we did it, as the two of us spent half the time we were down there arguing about which direction to go, but right when our air got to the safety limit we ended up next to the boat. Of course we pretended like it was on purpose.

Next up was the fish identification dive. Given a slate with pictures of all the different fish in the area and a list of fish to find, we set off to check off as many as possible. Again we were on our own and had to navigate the site as well, a different one than our previous dive. We managed to check off all but one of our list (stupid eels…), and again navigate our way back to the boat. This time I felt like it was only about half luck and half skill, so we were doing better.

The boat then took us back to shore for a bit to rest before the night dive later. We had dinner and discussed what the plan was. Diving at night isn’t nearly as hard as it sounds like it might be, mostly because as a rule you don’t dive at night in a site you’ve never been to before, and usually you go with a guide who knows the site quite well. Also, the flashlight you use is blindingly bright, and as the water is usually even clearer at night, visibility is actually quite good.

We swam around observing how things were different at night, watching the fish sleeping amongst the corals. We managed to find a barracuda as well, and followed the advice our instructor had given before we got in the water: set off in pursuit, shining our lights just in front of it. Every time the light hit another fish, the barracuda shot forward and engulfed it. Unfortunately, it eventually swam away from us and we were left again with the peaceful reef. Finally we emerged from the dark depths, all of us now certified as Advanced divers. I had a couple celebratory beers with the Israeli guy and his girlfriend, and then went to bed again exhausted. It’s amazing how much diving takes out of you, especially 3 dives in one day.

I had hoped to get in a couple fun dives the next day, but the massive influx of Koh Pha Ngan partiers had filled up all the boats, so I was left with the option of sun bathing on the beach, which I do have to say wasn’t entirely a bad thing. About halfway through the day I heard someone calling my name and looked up to see Marcelo, the Portuguese guy from the Gibbon Experience, walking up to me with a huge English guy named Johnny. They’d met up at the Full Moon Party and had come to Koh Tao to continue to party and enjoy the islands. We caught up for a bit, and then they took off, as Johnny had come to Thailand to train in Thai boxing, and there was supposedly a good gym on the island. We said we’d try and meet up later, as the area we were in isn’t that big, but it wasn’t in the cards.

The next day I set off on a boat for Koh Pha Ngan to see what all the fuss was about. Upon arriving in Haad Rinn, the beach of the famous Full Moon Party, I felt like I’d entered a ghost town. The small village had obviously been designed to accommodate thousands of party-goers, and with only a few hundred left, there was a lot of open space. Still, there were small parties on the beach every night, and during the day laying out on the north part of Sunrise Beach in some of the finest, whitest sand I’d yet seen was a great way to spend a couple days.

On my last day I did a longtail boat trip to some of the other beaches on the island, though bad weather and strong winds prevented us from going all the way around as was the original plan. Even worse, my supposedly “waterproof” camera from Olympus, that had until now been doing great in shallow water, decided to fail under only a foot or two of water while snorkeling. I’m going to have to buy a new camera somewhere now, but I’ll probably wait until Singapore in a little over a week.

I’d been more or less alone apart from some people I’d briefly meet on the beach or at a bar until the last night, when randomly I ran into a bunch of the people I’d been partying with in northern Laos, including Amelia, Ben & Nic, and Shane. We had one more night of fun together, at a bar where everyone was pretending like it was the full moon again and painting each other up with blacklight paint and dancing to loud techno music. I didn’t stay out too late that night, as the next morning I had a long combination boat and buses journey to the islands on the other side of the peninsula, specifically Koh Phi Phi.

Photos (before the camera broke)
Thai Islands, Southern Thailand