Back From Thailand, Back to “Real Life”
The diving in Koh Tao was excellent. So was the snorkeling!
Well, if you look carefully, the title of the site has changed to “Snorkeling and diving savoir faire for Nice/Côte d’Azur”. That’s because we are now certified recreational divers!
Since we’ve been back, we’ve joined a local diving club, and will be going on our third dive in Nice on Saturday. I can’t wait. I now spend my whole week waiting for the weekend to go diving.
Anyways, the trip was wonderful. We went to Koh Tao, which means “Turtle Island” in Thai. The people there was great, the diving there was great, and it was very inexpensive to get our licenses. One of our instructors mentioned that Koh Tao is the second cheapest place in the world to get PADI certified (I think he said Honduras was cheaper). Indeed, it was half the price it would have been to do it here in Nice. Plus, the whole open water learning process was done in the sea, and never in a pool. On our very first dive in shallow water, we saw a reef shark and a great barracuda. All in the first 4 minutes!
New Heaven Dive School in Koh Tao
We got certified at the New Heaven dive school on Koh Tao, and it was a wonderful experience. The crew there were all incredibly hard workers, were incredibly safety conscious, and did it all while looking totally laid back! I have to send my thanks out to Abel, Jean Nicolas, Andy, and all the other staff for the great and educational time we had there. You can check out their website here: http://www.newheavendiveschool.com/
We got certified there in 3 days, and did a total of 6 dives while on the island. We saw so much while we were there; the aforementioned sharks and barracuda, eels, stingrays, yellow boxfish, porcupine fish, titan triggerfish, a banded sea snake, and so much more. I have uploaded a bunch of underwater photos to show off some of the stuff we saw. Check them out here: http://www.azur-diving.com/Thailand-Marine-Pics/.
I really want to go back. The whole trip was just surreal, and the Thai people were amazing. Before I bounce out for this article, I a throwing in a link to a video I made with snippets from snorkeling and diving. You can see Titan trigger fish, a white-eyed moray eel, a couple reef sharks, a white banded sea snake, porcupine fish, and lots more. Video is below, direct link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqOfLWM-BDA
In Bangkok, Ready to head to Koh Tao
We head out for Koh Tao tomorrow evening. Went through Amsterdam and took the Whirlwind tour on the way to Bangkok (or Bung-kaok as it is REALLY pronounced according to our very talkative cab driver). Bangkok is hyper-intense and fun, but I can’t wait to hit the water!
I learned that National Geographic rated the PADI instructors on Koh Tao island in the top 6 PADI schools in the world. Looks like we’ll be earning from the best! More updates as they come.
