16th July - Bangkok to Koh Tao

Around 7am we were herded onto the ferry. I somehow fell asleep again - this time across very uncomfortable moulded seats.

We docked about 10am and thankfully, a lift from Davy Jones Locker (DJL) diving school was waiting there and so we avoided the usual confusing clamour to get to a guesthouse.

The lady at DJL was nice and gave us the option of starting our course today or tomorrow. We decided that since the 1st day was all theory and DVD watching, that we'd just be happpy to crack on with it. Less fortunately, the previous guests hadn't checked out of our room so all we could really do was wander til 12.30. It was a nice island though and was mostly populated with dive schools so we were really glad we'd made the decision of who to go with before we got there because otherwise we would have been confounded by the range of choice. Instead we stopped for a good brunch at the Coffee Boat and took a quick walk to see what was further down the road until it was tie to go to the room.

We started course at 2 and were introduced to Claire, our instructor, and Florence and Siobhan, our classmates. After a bit of waiting, some form filling, a DVD malfunction and a room change, we watched the corny instruction DVDs and answered the review questions. The information itself wasn't difficult, the hardest thing was being a 'student' again: working in a stuffy room, feeling sleepy and feeling question anxiety.
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Because I'd stupidly told the truth about taking regular medication on my health assessment form, I had to go and get a doctor's clearance from a nearby health clinic. Matt immediately got tolf off for not taking his shoes off before he went in but they had 3 dogs in there! The nurses were really rude and roughly took my blood pressure before sending me in to the doctor. I 'consulted' the doctor at the same time and in the same room as another man who was undergoing a procedure. The doctors asked me what medication I was taking, touched his stomach to confirm and listened to my chest before signing my form and sending me on his way. The whole thing took about 3 minutes!

Since it had dawned on Matt that he couldn't wear his glasses under his mask, we started looking into contact lenses. The lady in the shop was really helpful and took Matt's precription form his glasses so that he didn't have to go back to the room. After a bit of faffing and a conversation with one of DJL's instructors, Matt was the nervous owner of 15 days worth of disposable contacts.

We were home by 7pm to do our homework, which was qiute a lot ore time-consuming than we expected. By 11pm we were in bed and looking forward to spending some actual time in the sea whilst on this island.