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With no interest in staying on Koh Samui longer than two nights I booked a ferry to Koh Tao and an Open Water dive course to fill the remaining time I had in Thailand.
Upon arriving at Big Blue I was greeted by Neil, British instructor from Derby who had spent the last 6 years teaching at Big Blue. He went on to be my instructor for both the OW and my advanced course, which I couldn't be happier about.
Introductions, paperwork, settling into my dorm room and it was time to meet the others on my course and sit through a couple of deathly boring videos before settling down to watch the sunset with our manuals and homework.
The next day we met our actual course groups and instructors. Neil being my instructor, my group being, Mesa, Shanley, Krista and Camilla. We started with pool skills before heading into the classroom for more videos and talk.
The next two days we completed our exam and finally started our dives. Dive 1 and 2 on one day and then dive 3 and 4 the next. Despite not drinking I was gradually beginning to feel more and more ill and congested. Despite having no problems with the OW dives, when we began our advance course, minus Camilla, there was a little cause for concern.
Dive 1 went great, our buoyancy dive. What we had to do was difficult and required such discipline and control but it was fun and he was very impressed. Second came our navigation dive, during our free descent I experienced some pain when unable to equalise my ears. We sorted it and had no trouble after that. Done with the compass tasks, Neil left us in our buddy teams to complete our own and first unassisted dive while he waited at the surface for us to hopefully come up in the right place and within the right time. Last of the day was the night dive, what I was most excited about. Slightly worried about the descent, I took a decongestion tablet and crossed my fingers. Again we went down with a free descent and almost immediately the same pain came back, only this time it wouldn't go away and it just got worse. Bringing us to the line we waited while Neil calmed me down, rose with me till I was okay and the pain had gone and then stuck with me till we were down and ready to swim away from the line. On this dive it was cool enough just being down there in the dark but we also saw a sting ray and a green turtle!
Day 2, up bright and early, equipment bags at the ready for 6.30, I once again felt worse. Convincing them I was okay to dive, I took the decongestion tablets and we all agreed on a line descent with me at the front controlling the pace so if any problems were to occur they wouldn't be missed. Dive no. 4 was our deep dive, to get our 30m certification. It was incredible, no trouble on the way down and to be swimming among the fish instead of just above them was awesome! When we resurfaced we did however discover I had blood in my mask, Neil explained that this would have come from small capillaries bursting when the air is too forcefully removed. Not exactly good, but nothing to worry about he assured me. Finally came the wreck dive, again slight pain on our descent but it passed and we made out way down to HTMS Satticat. An old ww2 ship responsible for the sinking of 6 ships. I think that was my favourite of the 5 dives, it was just cool.
So I'm now certified to dive anywhere I the world, at anytime of the day to a depth of 30 metres which is pretty freaking cool. All thanks to our own personal hero, Neil. He was the perfect mix of banter, professionalism and caring. I'm sure all the instructors there are great but like I said at the beginning I couldn't be happier that he was our instructor. Team Neil all the way.
Finally managing to escape Thailand's quickly tightening grip over me, I'm sat in Vientiane, Laos just waiting for my bus out of here to Luang Prabang.
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