Advanced Adventurers

Koh Tao, 6/19/11

If one was having a romantic walk on the beach, the sight of five Western tourists walking aimlessly in circles, arm-over-arm, trying to figure out armband compasses would prove to be very amusing.

We're practicing our navigation skills on land before going under water. After hours of poor compassing circling, we're in the water at 2:26pm. We're leading this dive ourselves, trying to manage the depth and somehow circle Laem Thiam Bay and make it back to the boat alive. Yvonne follows behind, only interrupting to yell at me to slow down as I am trying to garner the new nickname of "Mighty Mouse" due to my velocity and size. Our group is a bit all over the place but we somehow make it to the boat and receive a royal welcome from a school of canary yellow butterfly fish.



Our final dive is at 4:36pm at the Japanese Garden. Remco and I are off on our own, sans instructor, with only our dive computers and compasses as tools. We do a decent job navigating the open bay, using the beach as our compass reference. Despite being alone, we're confident together as we were at the Full Moon Party, but we actually stick together this time. We pass by a giant trigger fish and endless schools of banner fish. Remco laughs as I can't seem to inflate my safety sausage. Performance anxiety, I guess as those plastic tubes are always hard to get out. I look a bit like a headcase as I entangle myself in the sausage and ascend, minus the inflated safety divice, like a hiker deep in the jungle swatting away mosquitoes. (Images from Google)

From Google

From Google

Despite my sausage failure, we rise to the surface right in front of the Big Blue boat. And as I look around spotting all of my peers on the surface, I know we've passed the final test with flying colors. We head back to the shore as Advanced Adventurer Certified Divers, approved to scuba up to 100 feet anywhere in the world, at any time of day.

Let the celebration continue beyond the sea:

Under the Sea

Koh Tao, Thailand

Underwater pictures from diving trips

Say hello to my little friend

Trigger Fish

Butterfly fish

Squirrel Fish

Rainbow Wrasse

Banner Fish

Channeling Superman

Pink anemone fish

Cave dive

And now may I present...

...a beagle riding a motorbike

Koh Tao Cuisine

Although Big Blue is located in the tourist hub of Sairee, there is still good food to be had if one avoids the catch all restaurants serving Thai, Italian, Mexican, pizza, and sandwiches.

Some highlights:

The affable samosa man who visits Big Blue's campus every afternoon selling deliciously flaky pastry pockets filled with the classic vegetarian masala mixture of potatoes, caramelized onions, and Indian spices. (20B = $0.60)

The restaurant simply called "Roasted Duck", whose eponymous dish hangs in the window and arrives with crisp skin and terrifically juicy flesh. It's served atop rice with mustard greens and a sweet hoisin sauce, which really isn't necessary for such scrumptious fowl. The roasted duck is even better in a large bowl of noodle soup, with a rich broth and no sauce in the way. Roast duck has always been one of my favorite foods, especially Peking Duck. In my book, it's always reason for celebration.

What are you up to? Just hanging.

The noodle cart right outside Big Blue's campus next to the 7-Eleven. A friendly Thai couple serves a large bowl with a light broth, pork, egg noodles, scallions, bean sprouts, cilantro, and chilis (60B = $2). An ideal way to fuel up between dives without traveling too far.

The blueberry lassis at our guesthouse restaurant. Plus their chicken coconut soup, with plenty of kraffir lime juice, galangal, ginger, lemongrass, and tomatoes to balance out the sweet, creamy coconut milk. Still not sure why half of our dive group repeatedly orders club sandwiches and burgers at every meal. They must still be knocked from the first deep dive. Either way, their culinary tastes are roughly equivalent to music fans who enjoy Nickleback or Linkin Park.

The endless varieties of fresh fruit shakes, although I keep going back to some combination of mangoes, pineapples, bananas, and coconuts.

Juicy shrimp covered in pepper and fried garlic, with cabbage underneath to mop up the sauce. Not only is the bulb low in cholesterol (sans frying) but I would eat fried garlic off the bathroom floor.