Day 25 - Koh Tao

Today we have a 'Dive site clean up'!    I love doing these  ...basically its a dive but we collect rubbish that's made it's way into the ocean.

Today we're diving off Freedom Beach  ..Crystal Dive has 22 volunteers out on their boat amongst a number of other dive schools. On the boat we're split into small groups of 3/4 divers, given bags to collect rubbish with a pair of scissors if needed to cut any netting tangled up and and then sent off into different directions to hunt for rubbish.

You'll be amazed at what you find.  Batteries, hair & toothbrushes, clothes, fan belts, big ole biscuit tins, rope and loads of netting.  As bags are filled, either one or all of the divers within that group would ascend and call over the longtail boat to collect the bag and empty it for us and then we'd drop back down to collect more.
My biggest find was around 20 or so fanbelts ..I just dont understand why people throw rubbish into the sea.  I suppose they think what the eye doesn't see, doesn't hurt....

Crystal boat was responsible for carrying all the rubbish back to the pier so that we could sort through it in order to get an idea who or what was the biggest offender and possibly take steps into prevention.

Later on we went to 'Dirty Nellys' for a drink, watch the new Open Water students video and then headed back down to Crystal bar where a 'Snorkel Test' was taking place for the 5 newly qualified Dive Masters.
If  you don't remember what this entails, then check out post of  Friday, 3 April 2009

As the mayhem settled and people dispersed, we bumped into Tom (fellow instructor) and his friend Frederica, who's visiting from France.  We chatted for a couple of beers and then headed off home stopping on the way to grab a takeaway as we were starving.

Day 24 - Koh Tao

As usual Simon was already working by the time I got up.  Connection hasn't been great but he's struggling on through.  I made tea and pottered about for a bit.  Heidi popped down to see if we wanted to go snorkelling at 'Shark Bay', as Si was busy I went on my own.   Alan was already down in town having a massage, so Heide drove their jeep down to Crystal so I could pick up my fins and mask, threw them in the boot and then waited in the shade for Alan to turn up.  He parked up his bike and jumped in the jeep and we headed off.

After parking and walking down some monstrous steps, we got our gear on and jumped in.  It wasn't long before we saw some black tip reef sharks, a trigger fish happily munching away (thankfully) and the biggest puffa fish I've seen in a long time. Conditions for snorkelling were perfect.  Black tips were everywhere, I think in one count there were about a dozen or so, nothing compared the 40 which Alan and Heidi saw last week.

I've only been to Shark Bay a couple of times, the first time I only saw a couple but only briefly and the second time, none at all, so seeing so many around me I felt a little nervous and apprehensive that they were going to attack  ...but they were just chilling taking no notice of us at all.  There were couple of times when Heidi and I turned around and one would swim between us  ...Awesome!!
The funniest thing I saw down there was a chaps privates as he attempted to mermaid swm underwater and his trunks ended up around his knees.  I pretended I didn't see and ended up nearly choking with laughter
Two or so hours later, after getting a burnt butt, we swam back and dried ourselves and climbed the humungous steps and clambered in the jeep.

Back home, Si was still working!!

After a 11hr day, Si had finished and we showered and headed out to 'Vibe' for a beer or two and then ended up moving to the 'Fizz' and another beach bar where we met Nathan (Eco man) & Teresa (Dive Master Trainee) for more beer, eco chats and then around 11pm we left to get a takeaway and head home to watch LOST

Jen x

Day 23 - Koh Tao

We woke early and headed down to the ferry terminal around 9am to meet Scott before he caught the 9.30 boat to Koh Samui for the last leg of his journey. After hugs, slaps on the back were exchanged and tears wiped from our cheeks we watched him toodle off down the pier, his head hung low and bag in tow looking back occassionally to see us waving ridiculously with joy ;-D  LOL

Scott, if you're reading this, it's been fabulous to have you here.  We will really miss you XX

On our way home we stopped and picked up a couple of pre-made rolls for lunch as today Si's got to work for most of the day, which isn't gong too well at the moment as one of the program's crashed, his disks to reinstall it are in Mae Haad and would you believe it, it's chucking it down and it doesnt look as though it's going to stop for some time.  Typical!!

Si finally managed to find a fix and carry on working for another few hours before we sat back to watch an episode of Eastenders (does anything cheery ever happen?!)
After quickly showering we headed to 'Dirty Nellys' for the 7pm 'Save Koh Tao' meeting where we discuss what's going on and around the island to help sustain the islands ecology.  Beach Clean ups (land/sea) updates on the Festival which runs on the 20th & 21st March, up and coming projects etc

After the meeting, it was rehersals for the Crystal Horror Picture Show  ...if I havent mention it, we're doing the Timewarp and hopefully getting one of the guys to do the Sweet Transvestite part which is going to be hilarious.  Simons cleverly done the graphics & titles and luckily for us, one of the Dive masters is a choreographer, I think without her we would have wasted hours, maybe days on getting a routine together.  What a talent!  By the end of the night we'd just about covered everything, less the main leading roles. 

After rehearsals, we stopped at 'Cafe Del Sol' for dinner and headed home to watch a couple of episodes of 'Heroes'

Jen x

Day 22 - Koh Tao

Si had been up for an hour at least before I surfaced around 10.40am after another unplanned late night.

We'd invited Scott up for food and a game of pool, then Alan & Heidi joined us and we ended up chatting and playing pool till 1am   ..Scott eventually caught a taxi home after Alans assistance as not many taxi's want to venture up our mountainous hill.

Most of the day was spent in the pool as we hadn't booked to go on any dives and Tina (fellow instructor) was out of the water due to her ear being inflamed so we all just to played around in the pool having doggy paddle races, handstand competions and all that marlarky.

A few hours later we all felt peckish, so decided to go 'Safety Stop' to grab some food.  Si logged onto the internet as usual to do work.  After eating, Tina went home and I popped out with Scott to buy his ferry ticket to Koh Samui for tomorrow morning.    On our return, we got the checkers out and I gave Scott a good thrashing ;-)    We had good intention to go to mini golf when it got a bit cooler but Si received a few more urgent jobs that needed to be done, so we ended up staying.
Scott left around 7pm to get showered and returned an hour later  ..thankfully Si had just about completed all that he all he could, so we had a celebratory beer and headed to Dirty Nelly's for food, before retiring early.

Day 21 - Koh Tao

We're so tired!!

We must have stumbled home around 1.30am and had to be up at 6am in order to be down at Crystal in time to catch the boat as we volunteered to lead fun divers.   We obviously hadn't planned on staying out late, it just ended out that way.  Originally we thought that Scott should experience Sairee by night properly, so started at Choppers' an Aussie bar, loud music, band, sports being played on plasma's everywhere  ..most popular place for newly qualified Open Water Students where things can get very messy.

Then our next port of call was 'Lotus' beach bar. This is one of those bars where it just comes alive at night  ..its got a palm tree leaning right over the sea, people doing fire poi, good upbeat tunes and sell lethal buckets of Samsumg & coke, Vodka & Redbull.    So after bumping into Tina & Carsten who we didnt think were coming out ...the earlish night went out the window.

Anyway, in the morning,  after stopping to get a fried egg sandwich to takeaway, we made it to Crystal in good time &
sat quietly on the boat feeling sorry for ourselves from the lack of sleep & heavy heads :-D
Luckily both of our groups that we took fun diving were very good, so a nice & easy couple of dives at 'South West Pinnacle' and 'Shark Island'

Back on dry land we washed our kit, stamped the fun divers log books with our new funky stamps with our PADI intructor numbers on, then headed to 'Safety Stop' for lunch with Tina & Scott before jumping in  the pool.

Tonight, Scotts coming over and we'll play a few games of pool :-D

Day 20 - Koh Tao

Met with Scott at his hotel, he was busy watching a film in the luxury of his air conditioned room, so we ventured back to Crystal to grab the bike and go for breaky...on the way we bumped into Nathan who was going to Chalok, other end of the island to grab some food, so we decided to go with him, just for a change of scenery.   We both ended up having a jacket spud would you believe with cheese and bean. Very nice indeed :-D

Back at the Crystal we thought it would be an ideal time to catch Matt the Crystal Course Director to film his part in the 'The Rocky Horror Crystal Show' as Si had his camcorder but as we arrived he was just leaving, full of cold  ..sounding terrible.  A real shame but we managed to grab Lob (an instructor) to shoot a B list version in one of the classrooms to test the lighting and work out exactly what Matt would have to do.   Its going to be hilarious!

Running only a hour or so late we met Scott at his hotel and played in the pool.  After a few hours in the pool we felt pretty peckish so went to Cafe Del Sol for a sandwich and drink and then headed home for a shower and change of clothes, ready for a night out in Sairee.

Day 19 - Koh Tao

Today, I was rudely awakened by my phone ringing.... it was the Dive School. They had no-one to teach the Discover Scuba Diving to Scott and since we were instructors, they asked if we could come down to do it ourselves.

So we zoomed down to Crystal, and briefed Scott, before getting him into all the kit and jumping into the pool.

I could tell he was nervous, but Jen and I did a good job of making him feel safe and comfortable. We did the necessary few skill demonstrations, and he repeated them, completing his pool session in relatively quick time.

So, we had an hour spare to grab some food and get our butts to the boat.

Boarding the boat, we showed Scott where things are put etc, and set the kit up for him. We had roll call and the boat left dock for Mango Bay, a dive site at the North end of the island.


Once we had arrived and finished briefing Scott on the dive procedures, we jumped in and went down via the buoy line. Besides a small cough splutter at the beginning, Scott had no troubles... We even managed to find the huge bait ball of Fusiliers, who have apparently been missing for months!

Upon returning to the boat, and completing roll call. The boat moved to Japanese Gardens, when Scott did a free descent with me holding on to him. Jen navigated this dive while I monitored Scott, and we saw lots of things including Triggerfish, Pufferfish, Groupers, Squid, to name a few. Jen navigated perfectly back to the boat, and we all came up with smiles on our face.!

We returned to Mae Haad, and washed our kit etc. Then after a quick game of pool, we headed to Dirty Nelly's as there was an Instructor party being held there, which meant free food!!!



We spent the next few hours putting the world to rights, and headed back home to bed, where we watched the Eastenders live episode....How sad are we?!

SD

Day 18 - Koh Tao

We met Scott at his hotel and jumped in the pool. Boy it's hot today! Si tried to drown me on several occasions but was unsuccessful ;-) LOL

Feeling jaded after a latish night last night and the heat is just draining, especially when you're not diving.

Around 2pm we headed up to 'Zest' for lunch and a refeshing ice cream shake whilst watching some of the winter olympics.

On our way back to the pool, we took a slight detour through the small market off one of the side roads to have a look at swimming trunks/shorts but saw nothing we fancied.

What a relief to get back into the pool. It actually felt cold as we were so damn hot! After a few hours of seeing who could swim the furthest underwater, hold their breath sitting on the botton, swimming through each others legs and handstands etc, we vacated the pool all wrinklly and sat on the beach front having a beer.

Tonight we're off to 'Tattoo' bar/cafe where they do great pies and have ping pong ;-)

Tomorrow Scott has signed up for a DSD (Discover Scuba Diving) and we're all going out on the afternoon boat for a couple of leisurely dives. I just hope that the visibility is good.

JD x

UK Special Blog Post

Here is our house at the moment... Being renovated...

Thought you might like to see the work in action...

Double glazing, New wiring, Bathroom changed, new kitchen, laminate floors... the works...

SWEET!






Here is our house at the moment... Being renovated...

Thought you might like to see the work in action...

Double glazing, New wiring, Bathroom changed, new kitchen, laminate floors... the works...

SWEET!

Day 17 - Koh Tao

Day 17 - Koh Tao
We were both up and dressed by 6.20am.  What a ridiculous time in the morning especially when it's still pretty dark outside.  The only bonus is that it's pretty cool and there aren't any mossies around.

We'd volunteered ourselves to assist with Tina's 'Advanced Open Water group as thre were a few issues and 'Team China' who are infact, you've guessed it, Chinese, dont speak English and got lost on a dive yesterday.5 of the 6 students were wanted to do 'Underwater Naturalist' as one of their Adventure dives and one chap wanted to do DPV (Diving Propulsion Vehicle)  ..so logistically it was impossible for her to accomplish this in 2 dives with all of her students  ..so jammy Si took the chap for a play on the DPV while I stayed to help look after and buddied one of the other chaps on their navigation.

Today the visibility was good  ..on their deep dive (30mtrs) you could just about see the boat on the surface.  There was an abundance of fish, Triggers, barracuda, butterfly, huge scools of damsel fish, huge groupers, moray eels  ...it only lasted 30 mins though  ...must have been the excitement of going 'DEEP'

We then zoomed off to 'Dirty Nelly's' to have dinner with Scott and watch the students video, after which we had to meet regarding the Rocky Horror Picture Show dance next month. We arranged stuff that we need to do this week (design graphics, buy clothes etc), before shooting off from the meeting to go to Thai Boxing.

 

 

We arrived at the boxing pretty late and only saw 4 matches. Only a couple of them were good. The final match got stopped very quickly and we didn't know why. When we asked a local, they said that it was because one of the fighters wasn't fighting enough so the ref gave the victory to the other guy. Very strange.

After this we went down to Vibe Bar to have a drink with Alan and Heidi, and eventually got home at 1am.

Busy busy night....

Day 16 - Koh Tao

Buoyancy World Volunteer Day

There was a massive turn out of 20 or so divers to help move the 80 concrete bamboo structures still remaining.

Dive 1 - Si & I were given special duties :-D
Firstly to move the buoy line, which had drifted 20 meters, back into it's correct position. The second, to put down a line to the bamboo so that no-one would have to worry about navigation. After Si and I had laid down the line, moved 2 structures, there was still no sign of anyone. Had they got lost? DOH!!
Eventually others appeared with spare tanks to fill the lift bags but by this time, Si was low on air so we did our 5m safety stop and ascended.

Dive 2 - Slightly more organised. We were split into groups. First group would go down, move as many bamboo as possible, then as people ascended, others would dive in. We had a limited amount of lift bags and it was pointless for people to be in the water not doing anything.

All in all a very productive day. There's only around 20 more bamboo structures still to move and a little tweaking here and there before Buoyancy World is finished.

What a brillinat underwater project!

Videos and Pics to follow soon!

Day 15 - KohTao

Another glorious day!

Scott who slept on a blow up bed for the night was already up and missing.  God knows where he'd gone.
I made tea and we both sat outside to drink it.   ......then, I could here laughter, as I had suspected  ..Scott had bumped into Alan & Heidi and gone up for a coffee ..Heidi can talk but I think he's met her match with Scott ;-)

As it's Scotts first full day on the island we thought we'd have a easy day, have breakfast at 'New Haven' a nice little cafe and then headed to 'Bans' while Scott walked down on his own, as he wanted to check out accomodation and do some exploring.

Scott showed up at the pool later, rather hot and dripping with sweat  ..he' had no luck finding any place to stay so we checked the map and made some calls.  Finally after leaving Bans pool, we checked out a couple more places and found him a great room at the new Crystal Hotel Regal.

That evening we headed to 'Dirty Nelly's' Irish pub to watch an Open Water Student Video, filmed earlier that day, had a few beers, food and eventually made tracks home.

Day 14 - Koh Tao

We've been out on the afternoon boat assisting Tina with here 4 Open Water students with dive 1 & 2.
Unfortunately one of the students was unable to decend on the first dive, due to ear problems.  The three remaining German students were very good in the water so Si & I just hung back and watched Tina do here magic.  Unfortunately the visibility wasnt great and yet again we had another dive at 'Twins' followed by 'Pottery' dive site.  All good fun though.

Back on dry land we washed our kit and headed to 'Safety Stop' to see Scott, our friend from the UK.   It's great to see a familiar face from home :-D    Scott's going to stay with us tonight and then find accomodation else where, in town.

Afte having some food and a good ole catch up, we headed back home to chill & to catch up on the latest new of his travels

Day 13 - Koh Tao

Well, no change in the weather, it's blistering hot!  ;-D

We were both signed up on the afternoon boat for a couple of fun dives, so no concrete structures to move.
Our first dive was 'Twins' yet again, visibility was pretty rotten and I led, my navigation is pretty terrible and when Si asked my halfway through the dive, where's the boat.  I was spot on.  Then after spotting a couple of massive Trigger fish I altered course, he asked me again a little later and I had no idea :-D

Titan Triggerfish

Let me just tell you, I got triggered last time I was here.  Triggers are mean looking fish and very territorial when it comes mating season (Now).  Their nest is a small area on the bottom of the sea bed but it goes up rather like an ice cream cone to the surface, so you can imagine, it can cover a large area.  Last year whilst diving and out of nowhere, I felt a massive punch on the side of my leg, rather like a cricket ball had him me at full pelt.  I turned to look. I thought I was going to see a massive chunk out of my leg as the force was incredible but luckily, there was only a massive mouth shaped indent there  ..I've never used so much air in a short amount of time in my life.   That really shook me up and now I'm very wary.

Check out those teeth!!

Second dive was at 'Pottery'  I've only dove this at night which made a nice change to see it in daylight.  We saw a Crown of Thorns (Coral eater), butterfly fish, Angel fish, Shrimp, Puffer  ..to name but a few.

Back on dry land we washed our kit and headed to 'Safety Stop' for a drink and to log on

Day 12 - Koh Tao

It's Valentines day!!

Both Simon and I woke to find a card each under our door  ..I wonder who they're from?  LOL

We thought as today is valentines, we'd have a lovely romantic time so we popped into Sairee to have breakfast and then went to Banns and played in the pool.

We headed back home around 4pm and I had a snooze as all that swimming really got to me whilst Si cracked on with some work  ..An hour or so later I arose from my rose layden bed (only joking) and we both watched an episode of Eastenders, showered and then headed down on the bike into Sairee for a romantic walk along the beach, stopping at 'Vibe' beach bar for a beer and to tell each other how much we loved each other  (please dont be sick LOL).  Sairee beach is so pretty at night, all the restaurants/bars have little dug outs in the sand where they have candles burning, mats/beans scattered  ..we'll take some pics next time.  After an hour or so, we headed back along the beach, back into town to a lovely Indian restaurant called 'Shalimar'  The food was delicious!

What a lovely relaxing day!! 

JD x

Day 11 - Koh Tao

Yay!    We're finally settled in our new place and before cluttering up the place with all our luggage, I thought I'd take some photo's  ..so here they are.

Our first nights sleep was very interrupted but Im sure we'll sleep tonight after a pretty tiring day.

After rising at 9am, we headed down to Mae Haad to have breakfast at 'Zest' coffee shop. This place sells fabulous breakfasts, bread, cakes and makes incredible sandwiches,  just what's needed first thing in morning (sorry, no pics).  We then headed to Crystal to get our dive gear ready for the afternoon boat.

Our first dive was actually a 'Reef Check'  ..Si & I had the job of surveying a 100m line and noting what invertebrates (Urchins, Sea Cucumbers, Starfish etc) were 5m either side.  ..after a 70min dive, we climbed back on the boat and logged our findings.  Our divers noted the Substrates (Hard, Soft coral, Sponge, Nutrient Indicator Algae etc) and of course fish.

Dive 2 was at 'Twins' where yet again we were able to help Nathan 'Eco Warrior' along with a handful of other divers move cemented bamboo structures into position for 'Buoyancy World'     It's great fun doing jobs like this and will be very rewarding once everything is in it's correct place.  I can see how frustrating Nathan might find it as we can only move small amounts due to the man/dive power. Two people per structure, moving 50mtrs is pretty time/air consuming.

Back on land we washed and packed our kit away and then hit Crystal bar for a well earned beer :-D

Oh yes, 'Save Koh Tao' festival in on next month, charity event, bands, turtle release, underwater photography competitions etc and we've been coerced into taking part in a Rocky Horror Picture song  ..on stage might I add     ARGGHHH!!!    So the first meeting was tonight to agree on what song/sketch we're going to perform  ...we'll keep you posted...

JD x

Day 10 - Koh Tao

Funnily enough it's another beautiful day here on Koh Tao! 

We're moving out of Alan & Heidi's today into our old apartment.  It's been great staying with them but now we can unpack fully and relax without living out of our suitcases.

Today we were on the afternoon boat for a couple of fun dives.  The first dive was at 'Japanese Gardens'  The visibility wasn't great but Si & I pottered around and saw a moray eel, a bright orange flat worm which we'd not seen before and three baby nudi branches.

Our second dive, was at 'Twins' that's where the buoyancy world is and we were given a task by Nath, 'Eco Warrior' to bolt together parts of the sunken butterfly.   The holes were already there, we just had to line the holes and put three bolts in, which was easy peasy, that was once we found the holes  :-D  lol   ...then we cruised around the whole dive site looking at all the structures which had been made by all the different dive schools.   It's pretty impressive and there will be more photo's & hopefully video to view.

We're back on dry land now sat in the Crystal restaurant after having washed all our kit.  Simons checking his work whilst I type to you guys.

Tonight, we'll be moving all or our gear into our appartment and having an early one :-D

JD  x

Day 9 - Koh Tao

Si woke early to complete some work and I arose around 10  ..so had a lovely lie in :-)

Today we helped out with a Reef Check course.  There's only one chap, Matt who's doing the course but Simon and I volunteered to assist as we wanted to see our artificial reef 'Junk Yard' and have a couple of easy dives.

Reef Check is where we lay down a transect linen (50m / 100m and monitor what's 5m either side of it)  Its a brilliant course, its more than just looking a pretty fish, it shows you the damage that is being caused by the surrounding environment, namely us (humans).  The course is a 4 day course but it's all classroom tomorrow and we'll be going out again on Saturday.

After our dives we sat in the Crystal restaurant and chatted, reveiwing what we'd seen and the effects of climate change then proceeded to 'Safety Stop' for a beer and to log on & check mails.

JD x

So far it;s been a nice relaxing day.  Tonight I think we'll be catching up with some friends to play 'Settlers of Catan'  and having a few more beers.

Buoyancy World Pics

As promised, here are some photos from Buoyancy World.

This is the deployment of 1 of the concrete barrels to hold the "Bamboo" in place.

Divers building a structure.

The Bamboo Forest, before being moved.


More to come.....!


SD

Day 8 - Koh Tao

A lazy day today. Funnily enough, we're both feeling a bit achey after all that heavy lifting yesterday.

We decided that we are going to take a chance and live at another place at the bottom of the road starting next month. Mainly as Simon needs a good solid internet connection for work purposes, and at the moment he is going from cafe to cafe to try and get urgent jobs done back in the UK.

Its boiling today, and we both really fancied a swim, so snuck into "Banns" (one of the largest dive schools on the island)  and made good use of their pool to cool off.... I think we must be the whitest people on the island :-)

After an hour or so we then headed into Mae Haad to "Deep Down Productions" (underwater videographers) so that Si could chat about the possibility of him teaming up and starting the documentary side of things.

It sounds pretty promising and they are a good bunch of gus who benefit from Simons expertise ;-)

JD

Day 7 - Koh Tao

Woke around 9am and packed all our dive kit together in preparation for todays dives  YAY!!!!

What I forgot to mention is that we're not actually fun diving (for those of you who don't know, a fun dive is actually just a leisurely dive following a guide around a dive sight) we're actually helping with 'Buoyancy World'  basically several of the dive schools have made different giant concrete structures, Star fish, Butterflies, Giant Clams, Octopus, Bamboo forest to name but a few.

On the day we arrived, a bunch of Eco divers were dumping the structures in the water at 'Twins' dive site and today we were moving them into place using brute force along with lifting bags over 50 meters or so.

Buoyancy World has been designed for training students to improve there abilities in the sea without causing damage to the natural enviroment.  We'll upload pictures soon.

It was good to get in the water again even though we've had a very tiring day.  I think we'll have a couple of fun dives tomorrow and just chill :-)

We're now sat in Crystal bar having a nice cold beer!  ...or two!