Day 238! Time for another morning of fun divers! Today was a great day of diving and hanging out with friends. I even got to take advantage of chilling out at Aow Leuk, something I haven’t done in a while! Two more weeks till I leave the island… crazy!

My fun diver this morning didn’t miss the boat today, so I was up bright and early to guide some dives.

Today I actually had two fun divers. Flavio and Daniel, both from England! We were heading to HTMS Suphairin/No Name Pinnacle and Red Rock today. I was especially excited about Red Rock because it’s been a long time since I’d been there and I’ve wanted to explore it’s famous swim through!

We started off with the shipwreck. The visibility was actually pretty good today! So I was able to take my fun divers to the bottom of the wreck. We were able to see around the bottom for the entire ship, it was awesome! There wasn’t much down there, but there was one puffer fish that wasn’t too happy with my torch light.

There wasn’t much else of note about the dive. It was pretty, but one I’ve done many many times. Still a very nice dive!

Our second dive was a fun one.

We dropped in at Red Rock and immediately I felt a bit of a current. Nothing crazy, but enough to be a bit annoying. We started circling the rock and immediately saw a file fish. Outside of that, there wasn’t much in the noteworthy fish department.

We finished circling the rock and I led us towards the island wall that is also a part of the dive site. The current was pushing towards us at an angle, so I tried to over correct our path so we’d end up where I wanted. I guess I overshot this path and ended up further north than I anticipated.

I was looking for the entrance to one of Koh Tao’s “best” swim throughs (according to a lot of divers). But I had never been there myself and didn’t know what it looked like. All I knew was I needed to head west of the main rock. I thought I found the entrance but it turned out to be just a random rock formation, so I’m glad I didn’t attempt to enter it.

But the DMT Chris and Tom dove up to us, they couldn’t find the entrance as well. Then Guada and her open water students came up to us too and they couldn’t find it either. Eventually I just started swimming more south because I had a feeling I was too far north.

Eventually I saw instructor Tom swimming north but further away from me. This made me feel like I was close and then I saw a big black shadow on some rocks, that looked like the entrance to a cave. I dove closer and closer and then finally saw the light from one of the 3 exits of the swim through.

Guada’s group and Chris and Tom followed shortly after. Luckily we all found it in the end because it was super cool!

It was wide enough to be comfortable but parts of it started narrowing towards the end. It felt like I was exploring a cave but it had an exit on the back side. It was sweet! I understand why it’s people’s favorite.

We wrapped up our morning of diving and headed back to Taco Shack.

I got lunch at Taco Shack and when I ordered, Aur looked at my a little funny and then said “I’ll give you the discount one last time…” I looked at their picture sheet that shows all the Taco divers and my face (along with Kit and Sina) wasn’t on there anymore! I asked Iris about this and I guess since I’m not technically “full time” and I’m a free lance diver now, I don’t get the discount.

I’ve had it since May and it’s been amazing, but I guess it’s time to start eating elsewhere that’s cheaper now! Oh well…

I’m sure I’ll have another quesadilla or taco at some point, but for now, I enjoyed my last one and a banana shake.

After eating, I took a nap and woke up to a text from my land lord saying the cleaning ladies would be over soon. So I took this time to go get a haircut… or try to get one.

I rode around the entire island and every shop I tried was closed, on break, or booked up for the day. I legit rode across the whole island and nothing!

So I went back to Sairee and signed up for a 5:30pm haircut at a place I’ve gone before. I then rode to Aow Leuk to hang out with my friend Lottie, her brother, and her brother’s girlfriend for a bit on the beach!

We spent a couple hours chatting, chilling on the beach and in the ocean, it was a fun time! It’s been a while since I’ve just hung out on a beach without wearing scuba gear.

After a few hours, I ran home to shower and headed over to my hair cut. You’ll have to wait till a picture from tomorrow to see it though (I just didn’t take one).

I met up with Chelsea and Sina and we got dinner at Blue Chair. I love hanging out with both of them and it’s sad that Sina will be leaving in a few days… and then I’ll be following suit not long after.

I went back to Taco for a little bit to hang out with Sina, DMT Tom, and DMT Chris. But I had morning dives tomorrow and I was very tired, so I hopped back home for an early night. I had to wait out a giant storm first though, so hopefully that means the island won’t be running low on water anymore.

– Elie