Day 163! Today was my second day of my dive master. The dives of the day would be a bit different than yesterday. Today I’d be assisting a course, instead of a fun dive. But it was still super fun, if not more fun.

The diving schedule is constantly updating and lucky for me, I was moved from the morning boat to the afternoon boat!

Today I would be sitting in on an open water class room, something all DMs do throughout the course, and then I would be assisting one of the instructors, Tom, on a try dive.

A try dive is a chance for people to do one day of scuba diving to see if they like it. Instead of spending 10,000+ Baht on a whim, they can test it out and if they like it, pay the difference and jump right into day 2 the next day.

Because of this switch I got to sleep in a tiny bit and then I headed over to Taco Shack for a quick muesli bowl before the class.

Today’s class was being held by Franco, my friend and open water instructor! I grabbed him the gear he needed for his presentation and also was his visual aid when he needed to explain something with a partner.

It was also super nice listening to the opening course again and just having a refresher of the basics.

After an hour and a half, the class was over and it was time for me to lead the new divers back to Taco Shack. I took them down to the basement where we keep all of our diving equipment and I helped them figure out what size of wet suit they would need.

Then, after they left and more instructors/DMs showed up, we started setting up all of the dive bags for the afternoon boat.

This was a bit of a challenge because right now we have A TON of divers. We had to wait for the morning boat to arrive to finish packing up. But until then, we headed upstairs for lunch.

When I was doing my open and advanced diving, there was a lunch “buffet.” But now that I’m on the other side I get served a plate. What was really sweet was that Atom, one of the scuba shop employees, remembered I didn’t eat pork and made sure I had a vegetarian plate!

We chowed down our food, I played a few games of pool, and then it was time to head out for the dive!

Since I was assisting, I had the pleasure of setting up all of the try divers equipment. I was very game to help, it gave me more chances to set up equipment and I was also excited to be with a class of fresh divers!

We spent the first dive at Mango Bay. Tom told the group about the skills we’d go over and what to expect. We then dove into the water and made our way to the shore of the bay.

For all of the exercises we were on our knees with only a few inches of water above our heads. It was a much different experience than my open water course and I was really glad to have the chance to experience it. I think it made the try divers minds at ease to know if they really needed to, they could just stand up out of the water, but none of them needed to.

They smashed through all of the skills and I could tell they were all having a blast and would most likely do the entire course.

After the skills, Tom led us all on a dive through the shallow bits of the bay, not passing below 5m. It was a nice and easy dive and I mainly worked on keeping neutral buoyancy while watching the other students to make sure they didn’t need help. Outside of not fully understanding how to maintain proper buoyancy, these try divers were coasting through the water, soaking in all the sights.

When we surfaced after the dive, they all had HUGE smiles on their faces and were pumped to go again.

So we got back in the boat, sent them up to the top, and I set about changing their gear to a new air tank.

We made our way to Twin Rocks, the dive site where we practiced navigation on my advanced course.

On our way there, we spotted something in the distance that made the boat halt. A big pod of dolphins was quickly coming towards our boat! They came up to the boat and were playing around it. It was insanely cute! At one point, two of the instructors jumped in to try and get a better look and swim with them. It was really cool!

We got the try divers suited up… and then Tom realized, I forgot the safety strap on all of their tanks. Whoopsies! Luckily that’s why we do our buddy checks. I’m not sure how I missed them, I must’ve been distracted at that point, but I’m glad he caught it!.

We then jumped into the water and made our way to the buoy line so the try divers could make an assisted rope descent.

The try divers smashed this dive as well! I could tell they were very much enjoying themselves and I was too! This dive site is beautiful and has a lot of coral and sea life floating around. We didn’t see anything super out of the ordinary, but I enjoyed focusing on my breath, practicing my buoyancy, and working on focusing on the students while also focusing on my surroundings as well!

This dive lasted around 35 minutes and was a very easy and nice dive. At one point I felt a tickle of a lot of bubbles on my chest and I looked down and one of the instructors, Kevin, was swimming under me with a giant mischievous, grin.

We then surfaced after dive and got back on the boat. All three students were going to continue onto the next day of the course this week! It was really cool watching them go from nervous to super excited… because that literally was just me as well!

We got back to Taco Shack, where we cleaned up the equipment and I headed back to my apartment to shower. I then went back to the hostel lobby and grabbed food to go, because it was time to go play some sand volleyball!

A lot of the Taco Divers play in a sand volleyball tournament every week. I played in it early on in my time at Taco Shack. But I didn’t have the time to do it since. Now I do!

I played on a team of 4 with my DM partner in crime, Kit, and two new guys, Ben and Olly (both from England).

Our first game was pretty atrocious. But our second game was full of synergy and energy! We ended up dominating and winning a free beer for our efforts.

Kit and I are diving in the morning together! So after the beer we went back to the hostel to call it a night.

It was a very very very good day! I’m glad I got right back into the water and I’m excited to do it again tomorrow.

Tomorrow is going to be a big day for me. We’re heading back to Southwest Pinnacle, where I’ll be doing a fun dive with Kit and it’ll be led by Albert. I’m planning on getting my revenge on this dive site and seeing it properly! People say it’s absolutely stunning and I can’t wait to see it all myself!

– Elie