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Alarm sounded at 645. Cook was up and breakfast already prepared. Grabbed essentials for the day (factor 50, towel) and climbed into the dive school pick up. A-lo had opted for a day of loungers, books and lunch at Moon Hut…..
There was a bit of hanging around before the boat left. The 2 instructors, Alan and Ian were a couple of good old boys who smoked roll-ups like a chimney and were loving expat life in Samui. They didn't look too stressed.
Alan gave me his life story on the way over to Koh Tao. Aged 51, grown up kids in the UK, schizo ex-wife, new former pro-boxer (18 wins, 8 KO's) Thai wife. They had a 4 year old and the set up sounded very sweet. Most interesting was the story of her dad's funeral in a village in the hills, even down to crushing the bones once the pyre had died down.
Conversation moved to Koh Samui: he said that most of the tourists were either backpackers or the "dirty mac brigade". I got a good insight into the local sex trade. It was largely young farang boys who were the exploited ones, being left with a broken heart and an empty wallet after 24 hours.
Koh Tao looked amazing with small groups of bungalows perched on cliffs footed with huge boulders. Dropped beginners off at a tiny beach called Mango Bay before heading out to the dive site.
Jumped off the stern and joined Alan and my buddy, Dominique, in the ocean. Descended the anchor rope and spent nearly an hour at 15 meters swimming around huge boulders, adorned with beautiful coral and colossal sea slugs. There were huge shoals of fish, but a real highlight were the thousands of yellowtail barracuda. Saw a moray eel too.
Ate lunch in Mango Bay, served on board in Thali dishes. The Massaman was the best yet! Transpired over lunch that Ian's former job was a submarine nuclear reactor controller, a "real life Homer Simpson".
More of the same for the afternoon dive, before snoozing in the bow for most of the ride home. Sneaked to Tesco on the way home to pick up some wine for our anniversary dinner.
Back at the villa, A-lo had spent the day chilling, reading, fried rice at Moon Hut and cooling down in the pool. She did admit she had missed me!
Evening started with a couple of Sundowners: normal Cubre Annelise, Singha) before wandering along the beach to a recommended restaurant. We didn'tfind the one we were looking for and ended eating food I wouldn't write home about, so I won't.
It was very very hot, so jumped in the pool when we got home and sat in the shallow end with a Singha. Once we had cooled and had wrinkled skin we turned in…..
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