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Yesterday Kerry and I caught a ferry from Koh Pha Ngan to Koh Tao, it took about 2 hours. Koh Tao is pegged as some of the best scuba diving in asia, so i thought i must have a go. We were approached by a tout (haggler) on the ferry promising everything for nothing, which i got sucked in to. Anyway, after 2 hours of inspecting rooms and negotiating prices, we had ourselves a room for 2 nights, and 2 scuba dives for myself (for about $120 AU all up). While the diving is cheaper than in AUS, it is still reasonably expensive as they appear to have lots of blokes helping out on the diving boats.
The room we got was quite nice. I had to get up a shade before 6 this morning to go on my 2 dives. The first one was breath-taking. I was promised all sorts of marine life, and i wasn't dissapointed. It was quite a deep dive (to 30m) where we dove around a pinnacle (about 10km off the island). The sun rose as we motored out to the dive site. The company i dove with are renouned for being the first boat on the dive sites in the morning. We were the first dive boat out there which is a great advantage, as the marine life is undisturbed if you are the first to arrive. As we descended to the sea floor, i saw 4 black tip sharks circling smaller fish. It was such a treat, as i had only seen very small sharks up until this point. The sharks were all about 2 to 2.5 metres long. I dove with a pommy and a guy from Holland, and we were all very suited to dive with each other, as our air consumption rates were quite similar. The second dive was not quite as spectacular, but was great all the same. I came across a type of fish which took great pride in hitting my ears. I had never experienced it before, but it really gave me a bit of a fright when this fish kept hitting me in the ear, as i couldn't see the fish, it kept darting around behind me head. So i had to swim around with my hands over my ears which kept it at bay.
Finally back on the boat, i had clocked up another 1.5 hours dive time and was sporting a huge grin.
Our plush hotel room is equipped with satellite TV, which is such a novelty to us. It is the first time we have seen any english TV (or news even), since we left home. We are spending tonight here on Koh Tao, before catching a ferry back to the mainland tomorrow where we will probably spend tomorrow night in Bangkok before heading to Northern Thailand (perhaps Chiang Mai) on Saturday.
Kerry has had a pretty bad scrape on her foot which we have been trying to nurse back to health. Apparently gashes cannot be taken lightly here. If wounds are neglected, it is easy to end up in hospital with badly infected and gangreenous wounds (due to the high humidity i gather). Luckily our friend Belinda stocked us up with lots of antiseptic and dressings before we left, so Kerry is almost back to 100%.
Will post another update in a few days. Sorry there is no photos with this, i haven't really taken any in the past few days.
Heath
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