17th July - Koh Tao

After waking from a deep sleep in the poshest bed we'd seen for a while, I was quite looking forward to the day.

It took a good while to get Matt's new contacts in but eventually settled on a technique that we could start to refine: Matt sat on the loo using both hands to wrench his eye open and I dartied closer with the contact to try and slip it on his eyeball before his eyelids involuntarily closed. How one little eyelid can overpower the strength of two fully-grown arms and hands I really do not know but it took a while before we were 'successful' and Matt could emerge red-eyed, blinking and a little visually disorientated into the Koh Tao sunshine.

The course started at 9am and we completed the 4th and 5th sections of the course. We were saved from watching more cheesy PADI DVDs and Claire just told us what we needed to know to do the reviews. I seemed to have a severe case on the shakes and could barely write properly (probably the huge super-strong coffee we'd had with breakfast) so it was a relief not to sit through more American drivel while I jibbled away.

We took our exam early and it was quite simple but for some reason I suddenly could not get my head around the dive tables. They were phrased quite like Maths exams and were obviously fairly straight forward but I got hot, frustrated and even more quivery so I (reluctantly) took a break and went for lunch instead.
In the afternoon we were due to start our 'Confined Sessions' where we start to learn the skills needed before diving. It was meant to be in the pool but it was being drained and so we took the boat to Mango Bay to do them there.

The first job was to prove that we could swim a certain distance, but the bigger task for me was actually being able to jump in the water. I just don't do jumping off things. At Halong Bay, I looked longingly at the people jumping from the boat to the sea and without comprehension at the people who jumped backwards from the top deck. In all honesty, the sea scares me. It's vast, deep, powerful, contains all sorts on crazy things, tastes awful, and I only learnt to swim about a year ago! I'm not a big fan of being in the swimming pool when my feet can't touch the floor and have only  parallel to the shore the sea and certainly no more than about chest deep!

After a few false starts, nearly giving up and going back, and generally feeling like an absolute dufus, I finally braved it - holding Claire's hand I might add. I'd tried to jump in holding Matt's hand previously but had chickened out and let him go. Thankfully he's had the sense to let go to and hadn't dragged me in head first.
After a couple of circuits of the boat, we climbed back onboard and started to get our gear on - and that's when the fun with the equipment started. Matt's weight belt wasn't long enough to go around his waist and my wetsuit turned out not to have a functioning zip. Luckily, there were spares and it didn't take too long before we were on our way.

The next challenge was trying to do a 'giant stride' from the boat, weating all of our gear. I know that i couldn't drown because I was wearing my inflated BCD but it still took me a fair few count-ins to finally do it. And when I did, my feet changed their minds and started scrambling for the edge.

Once in the sea I was fine and appreciated the views of the lighthouse site and the fact that with the BCD and a decent snorkel, I managed my first successful snorkelling session ever. There were so many pretty fishies swimming around beneath me that I couldn't help but be excited.

Learning the skills was good fun and it felt weird but wonderful to kneel a few meters under the sea and still be able to breathe. Staying upright was a bit more of a challenge because of the pull of the waves above us but I can't say that I didn't enjoy being dragged around a bit and bumping into people - at least for the first 10 minutes anyway.

We had to head back eventually because the group who'd gone diving were back and the boat and Matt had run out of air but I was very much looking forward to our first proper dive. Siobhan really didn't like being under the water though and so decided not to pursue the course. I felt sorry for her but I also couldn't help but feel relieved that I wasn't the only one with issues.

There was a vague plan to join the event of the fortnight and go and watch Leeroy Thornhill (ex-Prodigy fella) DJ at a bar later in the evening but after dinner we were quite tired. We did wander past and even though it hadn't started it was already super loud so we were very middle-aged and gave it a miss.

Instead we ended up at a bar further down the street, listening to odd lounge versions of popular somgs and watching rubbish but gracious fireshow guys practising their performance. I think it was the proper show but they had a fair few mishaps that made us pleased that we hadn't opted for the front-row seats. We were suitable placed to watch the horror of a group of guys sat in front as burning stick came flying towards them several times. It seemed to elicit a better response from the audience when they missed than when they didn't so there was a really nice, encouraging atmosphere as well as no real catastrophes.