Day 184! Sheesh! The current today ended up being pretty strong for Koh Tao standards. We had to spend a lot of our fun dive near the bottom of the ocean and wedging through rocks to avoid the current and use it to our advantage. But before that, I needed to help my dive manager with an errand.

Due to a little change in the schedule, I was taken off the morning boat this morning. I think there were too many divers on the boat, so Chris moved Kit and my navigation course to another day.

This meant I got to sleep in a little bit, but I ended up getting up around 8:30am to run a quick errand.

I just got my GoPro in the mail from my parents! It’s really really very sweet of them to send it and I’m excited to add pictures to my scuba stories. But I want to make sure I don’t lose my GoPro in the abyss of the ocean. So I drove to Aquamaster, a scuba shop on the island, to get an accessory that will hook into my GoPro and onto my BC… but also gives me the flexibility to move it around and get good shots.

With that purchase out of the way, I went back to Taco Shack to enjoy a muesli bowl for breakfast…

But before I could sit down, Iris, the scuba diving manager, came out of the office asking for my assistance. A shipment of new Taco Shack shirts had come in and she wanted an extra hand to help carry them. I of course was willing, so we hopped in the hostel’s taxi and went to the pier.

It took us backing up into two ferries to finally find the bags, but after some translations with the ferry staff, we eventually found the right spot.

These bags were ginormous and had hundreds of tee shirts in each of them. The new design is very cool and Kit and I got one each as a part of us signing up for the dive master program (one of the most expensive shirts I’ve ever bought).

I then went back to the hostel with Iris and we unloaded the bags into the diving office with the help of the Taco Shack staff. I finally was able to sit down and enjoy my muesli bowl after this.

Not long after eating, it was time to help pack up bags for the new divers. And after that, it was time for lunch!

On today’s afternoon boat, I was assisting Chris’s day 2 of the open water course.

I started out the day by giving a quick refresher on how to set up the equipment and then setting them loose to do it on their own.

After that we got ready for our first dive of the afternoon, at the dive site Pottery.

The first dive consisted of mainly skills. These included emergency ascents, swimming without a mask, and removing our equipment above and below the water. All of this was done in very shallow water.

We then went on a short dive back to the boat and I brought my GoPro along. I only got a couple pictures before the current got pretty intense while we were diving.

Unfortunately, my surface marker buoy (SMB) filled up with water since I didn’t inflate it all the way, which made it really hard to dive in current.

Luckily, we were only 5 meters below the surface. So I surfaced and emptied it out to make my life easier. We finished up the dive and switched our equipment for the second dive.

We didn’t stay out of the water for long since we didn’t go very deep on the first dive. So we strapped back in and I led the group through another controlled descent into the water.

Usually we’d do a free descent on this dive, but since the current was so strong, we would’ve missed the dive site. So another controlled descent on the buoy line was the solution.

On this dive we used the current to drift around corners and propel us through the dive. It felt like I was drifting in a car. We also had to kick into the current a lot which made the dive fairly tiring.

On the dive though, we saw a number of puffer fish, big and small. Unfortunately, my GoPro battery died. So hopefully I’ll get more pictures tomorrow on my morning dives!

My SMB filled up with water again on this dive… luckily my DMT friend Till was on the dive with us as well and I handed it off to him to give myself some rest and to use less air for the remainder of the dive. Even with the current, the dive ended up being 40 minutes!

Outside of kicking into the current, this dive made me realize current can be a great advantage and a bit of fun too when used right. Swimming sideways through the water in a controlled manner is a lot of fun! But when current isn’t expected… it’s not as fun.

After the dives, we had to offload everything from the Taco Shack boat. The boat will be undergoing 3 weeks of maintenance so for those weeks we will be using the dive point and Scoobadoo boat.

When we got back to Taco Shack, Kit, Guada, Theo, and I enjoyed a nice gin and tonic together. Theo’s birthday was last week and he was off the island for it, so this was a mini celebration for him.

Kit and I then went to Mama’s for dinner, where I enjoyed a classic meal of fried chicken and a mango smoothie. It’s pretty much comfort food at this point!

We had a great time chatting about how diving is going, life, and a bunch of other things. I really enjoy Kit’s company and I’m glad I decided to do my dive master with him!

After dinner, we decided to go play some pool and have a couple drinks at the hostel. The tally after these games is 8 to 5 (me in the lead). This then turned into helping Yi run the smash ball tournament, which I was more than happy to help with.

We had a ton of people wanting to play, which made for a long 3 games. But then we had each winner face off for the free drink bucket. Kit and I each grabbed a microphone and commentated the match, which was a lot of fun.

After the tournament was over, I called it a night and made my way back to my room.

Since we’re using the Dive Point boat now, we actually don’t need to be at Taco Shack until 7:15am. So that means a tiny bit more sleep for me from now on!

– Elie