Day 159! Today is the final day of my advanced diving certification! I’ve had an absolute blast learning this new skill and exploring the vast ocean… but the fun isn’t stopping yet and you’ll find out why once you read through this incredible day!

Diving yesterday made me sleep through the entire night, which was the first time in a while that this had happened.

This morning was the start of day 2, the final day, of my advanced diver certification.

I had to wake up nice and early for our morning dive. So just after 6am I rode down to 7-Eleven to grab some breakfast.

I sat, chomping away at my delicious chocolate chip banana muffins and chatted with another diver, Louis. We were the only two up so far, but there were plenty more people diving this morning.

Due to an impending storm, the dive boat was harbored at a pier near Taco Shack. So instead of hopping in the taxi and going to the main pier, I got on my motorbike (since the taxi was full) and followed the taxi to the other pier.

We arrived at Freedom Bar and then waited for a small boat taxi to take us to our diving boat. We all piled on with a lot of excitement for the day!

Our first dive of the morning was at a site called “No Name.” It’s located directly next to a shipwreck called Suphairin 313, which we’d be getting to explore at a depth of 30m!

I was pretty pumped for another deep dive and to see a different ship wreck up close and personal. As we descended to the ocean floor, I had a little bit of trouble equalizing through my left ear. But after some brief guidance from my instructor Theo, I took off my mask, exhaled hard and my ear was clear.

I put my mask back on and we continued down until we had our knees on the floor, practicing our neutral buoyancy. Just like my last deep dive, we checked our math skills to make sure none of us were experiencing narcosis. Theo hit me with 6 x 8 which was a bit harder than adding to 11 with Franco, but I was able to answer it quick enough.

Theo also brought with us two eggs. Unfortunately the raw one cracked and it was supposed to be a really cool show of the effects of pressure and volume of going down this deep. So I’m still not exactly sure what happens with the egg (no spoilers please, I’ll see soon enough).

He also had a pink egg, which in Thailand means it’s been boiled in soy sauce. And we messed around with it and saw that it was negatively buoyant and would sink when let go.

After giving the fish a tasty snack, we made our way around the wreck and swam through the captains quarters of the ship.

The captains quarters on this wreck was an extremely tight squeeze to get through. But we used the knowledge we picked up from our skills yesterday and successfully made our way through the gap.

We then went on to the “No Name” part of the dive. Here we floated through coral, saw some pretty large schools of fish, Theo and Emma saw a puffer fish (unfortunately I missed that one) and we saw some very large queen fish!

After a 28 minute dive, we made our way back to the boat to relax, chat about the dive, and discuss the next dive. This dive was a bit shorter because we ended up spending a longer amount of time around 30m and air gets used faster the further down you go!

The visibility on this dive was incredible. When we entered the water we could see 30m down to the shipwreck. It got a little less visible the further down we got, but for the most part it was spectacular.

We made our way to the next dive site, which wasn’t too far away and was one I’ve partially already done. The waves were starting to come in hot as a storm was brewing up and a lot of people on the boat were starting to get a bit seasick.

This dive site was called Hin Pee Wee, which gave me a chuckle. But just like the last site, it was near another shipwreck, Sattakut 742. This is the shipwreck I did on my open water deep dive.

On this dive, we made our way down to 29.6m diving around the shipwreck and then making our way back to Hin Pee Wee. The visibility during this dive started out not as good as the first dive. But by the end of it we were swimming around corals and other diving groups with ease.

I was feeling really good about my buoyancy during this dive and starting to feel like I was just floating around the ocean.

We surfaced after an incredible 28 minute dive. But the day wasn’t over yet, as we had our night dive still to do before we were advanced certified divers.

The boat ride back to the pier was a rough one. The waves were knocking the boat around and again a lot of people were not feeling great from the ride.

Me on the other hand, I was having a blast! The ocean is my happy place and even in choppy waters, I’m a big fan. I had a big smile on my face as I tried to balance standing up and enjoyed rocking back and forth with the boat and the waves.

Unfortunately, we arrived at the regular pier… which meant our motorbikes were stuck at Freedom Bar. So we shoved everyone into the taxi and made our way back to Taco Shack.

Immy and I got shoved into one seat at the front of the truck. Luckily it was a quick ride!

We got back to the hostel and I found my friend Olly working on his laptop. He was kind enough to stop what he was doing and gave me a ride to the pier where my motorbike was. This is also when I found out he was leaving the island tomorrow! He’s been on the island for half a year, slowly working on his Dive Masters. It’s sad to see him go, but I have a feeling our paths will cross again.

When I got back to the hostel, the free dive meal for the afternoon divers was wrapping up. So I finessed a plate of it before they took it away to throw out.

I don’t think it was because of anything I ate or drank. But my stomach was very upset, which I think was due to the boat ride. So I went to take a nap and when I woke up after an hour, I rode down the road to Mama Tam’s restaurant and got myself a banana smoothie. I also went to 7-eleven and got myself a probiotic drink. Both drinks seemed to sort my stomach issues out quite nicely!

I decided it was finally time to play some pool, so I went to the hostel lobby and found my coworkers playing head to head games. I joined in and beat my coworker Win (ironic name for the situation). But then got smoked 2 times by the next one.

After some fun banter and games, I wanted more quiet time. So I headed over to the dorm, grabbed my guitar, and sat in the lobby of my building strumming away. I was also joined by my furry friend Taco for a little bit too!

An hour later, Olly came by asking me if I wanted to buy his diving fins off of him.

Now you may be wondering… Elie, why would you need your own pair of diving fins? Well, I’ve decided to stick around Koh Tao for another couple of months and get my dive master certification! I’ve really fell in love with this world below the ocean floor and seeing how I’m going to Australia, my dive master (DM) will be the perfect thing to have!

Once I get certified, I’ll be able to lead groups on dives… and get paid to dive. If I want to, after 6 months of having my DM, I can get certified to instruct as well. But we’ll see how I’m feeling then.

This also gives me the opportunity to keep hanging around Koh Tao, while challenging myself to learn how to be even better at this new skill! The diver’s lifestyle is one I’ve really enjoyed and I’m looking forward to the next two months of immense physical activity.

Along with that, one of my friends, Kit from England, is coming back to do his DM as well! I thought it’d be such a fun experience to go through it with a friend and share the experience with!

In the end, I decided to purchase Olly’s fins. I wasn’t going to find a better pair for cheaper and I had my instructor Franco take a look at them too and he agreed with the sentiment.

No one is going to miss me under the water with these bright bad boys!

I ended up hanging out with Olly, Lydia, and Pi for the next hour and then my friends Immy and Emma showed up as it was time for our final dive of our advanced course! The night dive! There was a lot of excitement and nerves for our last dive, but I think most of us were more excited than nervous.

We made our way on the taxi, back to the pier by Freedom Bar. This pier was actually only a couple minutes away from the dive site we’d be hitting, Hin Won Bay.

We started the process of getting ready for our night dive as the sun was setting. Since it was a cloudy and semi-stormy day, there wouldn’t be much moonlight to help us out. So we were going to be in pretty much complete darkness on this dive.

Because of this, we were each equipped with torches (flashlights) that are designed for diving. We all geared up and then plunged into the dark abyss below.

Prior to the dive, I was really curious to see how my brain reacted to the darkness… but strangely enough, I was more calm on this dive than ANY of my other dives. I don’t think my brain really clocked that we were under water and it just felt like I was floating through space.

We took this dive slow and just meandered our way around the ocean floor. The dive wasn’t that deep either, as we only made it to around 10.3m. BUT, this meant that we were able to dive for much longer! We were underwater for 46 minutes and I had the best air consumption I’ve had yet. I still have a lot of work to do on that, but I’m sure I’ll have that figured out soon enough.

On this dive we saw a lot of bleached coral, which was really sad to see. But we did see some very colorful and thriving coral as well. Apparently the coral bleaching has all been within the last month or two, due to rising climates and lack of care from the boats and swimmers around it. Something I’m sure I’ll pick up on a lot more through my training is ocean conservation, as it’s a pretty important thing!

The sea life was pretty sparse on this dive, but we saw a TON of sea urchins. They all come out in the safety of the night to roam. It was really cool getting up close and personal with them and I saw, for the first time, their little blue tentacles they have and also saw them moving around!

We also saw a spotted stingray fluttering about, it was a really beautiful site.

I hadn’t really ate much all afternoon, because of my stomach issues, so I rewarded myself with a couple of delicious biscuits after a very successful dive.

We made our way back to Taco Shack, where we cleaned off all our equipment and then Emma, Immy, and I sat down with Theo to wrap up our course. Emma will be leaving the island soon, but Theo told Immy and I that he’d love to take us out to Tanote bay to dive sometime! We’ll definitely be taking him up on that.

When we got done, I went over to say hello to some of the staff and then I heard “oh hey Elie!”

I turn around and it was Kun! When I was traveling with my cousins, Mina, Ben, and Sam, we had gone on a trip to Doi Inthanon. Kun was on this trip and I hadn’t seen him for over a month now. I always love these little small world moments and I’m sure I’ll be seeing him around more over the next week!

I was ravenously hungry by this point. So I tested out my stomach and ordered a fried vegetables with chicken and rice. My stomach took it well thankfully and I went back to my room to shower and get ready for the night.

A couple days ago, Pi celebrated his birthday. And today, a recently graduated DM, Phil, was celebrating his as well. So they threw a joint birthday party at a nearby hostel and after I got ready for the night, I went over there to celebrate with them.

The party didn’t last super long, as most people had been diving all day or had to dive early in the morning. But for the amount of time I was there, I enjoyed chatting with all my Taco Shack friends and some new faces as well.

I also learned that one of the diving instructors, Chris, will be my DM instructor. I’m getting very excited for the next couple of months!

After an amazing day, I’m officially 11 dives in to my diving career! Over the next two months I’ll be wracking up a lot more than that. This is a pretty big shift in my plans, but I’ve been looking for my next big thing… and this feels like the right next step! There are plenty of other countries in SE Asia that I want to see and explore, but they’ll be here for when I come back. For now, I’m very VERY happy to be stuck on this little slice of paradise experiencing a new joy and journey I never thought I’d be on!

– Elie