October 23 - Thailand: Koh Tao
Rescue Diver Course - Day #1
We had breakfast at Ban's Restaurant. Which, incidentally, is right on the beach and it was a beautiful morning so we were very happy with our eggs and toast!
Morning Session - Theory
At 9:30, we met with Flav to begin the Rescue Diver portion of the course. We were joined by a few other people: Ella from Israel, Paul from England, and Thomas from Denmark. Ella is working on her Dive Master certification, Thomas is already a Dive Master, and Paul is considering. So we jumped into the PADI video about different rescue methods, entries, exits, approaches, and risks. The video was pretty informative, and Flav followed it up with demonstrations and discussions for what skills we'll be practicing later in the water.
We have a textbook, "PADI Rescue Diver Manual", and we also have some Chapter Summaries which we'll must complete before the final exam. At 11:00, we broke for lunch and were told to be at the dock at 1:00 to leave for the boat.
Jon and I had lunch at Ban's Restaurant, and worked on our chapter summaries while we waited for food. The food at Ban's isn't bad, and it's not terribly expensive so we're happy with it.
Afternoon Session - Skills
At 1:00, we met the group at the gear hut next to the dock. There, we got our stuff and waited for the longboat to come take us to the dive boat. There were a few other classes with us - most of them new divers doing their Open Water course.
We suited up and put our gear together, and the boat reached the dive site after only 10 minutes. It was a site where three little islands were joined together by one sandbar. Pretty cool to see. The middle island had a small resort on it, but Flav says it's outrageously expensive and the food isn't so good.
Dive #1: Rescue Diver Session #1
Depth: 14 meters
Bottom Time: 10 minutes
Visibility: 15 meters
Our first skill was an underwater panicked diver, who we had to approach and calm down. Jon was the victim for me, and then I was for him. The scenario had the panicked diver - who is now out of air because he panicked and used it all - grab the regulator out of my mouth and I have to deal with that, grab him, and calm him down again. Jon, of course, was in his element and is a consummate over-actor.
The next skill was to find an unconscious victim and take him to the surface. I did this for Jon, and then we descended again and he did it for me. We were only at 14 meters, so the ascent and descent wasn't anything to worry about.
Then we practiced our water-surface skills. Mainly: how to approach a panicked diver, what to do if he/she grabs you, what to do if they are swimming to you, and how to get them to calm down.
Dive #2: Rescue Diver Session #2
Depth: 14 meters
Bottom Time: 20 minutes
Visibility: 5 meters
The second session was a navigation dive. We each had a compass and did an "expanding square" search pattern which is basically 5 kick cycles North, 10 kick cycles East, 15 kick cycles South, 20 kick cycles West, 25 kick cycles North... you get the picture. Then we were on our own to see the Coral Gardens. Flav had told us where they were, so Jon and I set off underwater to find them.
Suddenly, we found ourselves in very low visibility, high current water and were positive that we'd overshot our mark. So we decided to turn back, but weren't sure which way to go. We both kept pointing to our compasses and pointing in different directions. If you can, close your eyes and picture this: Jon and me on the bottom of the ocean having a typical husband-and-wife argument about directions. It was classic... "No honey, we came from THIS direction!"... "But I know the boat is THIS way!"... "Fine. We'll go your way.".... "No. We'll go YOUR way!".... "Fine."... "Fine."
A few meters later, the same argument occurred again. We weren't getting anywhere. And to make matters worse, our depth gauges were reading different depths, so we had no idea how deep we were. This latter part is especially dangerous because we already had nitrogen in our blood from the previous dive and didn't want to go too deep this dive. So we decided to go up.
On the surface, we could see that the current had carried us WAY FAR away from the boat. Because we were one of the first buddy teams to come up, this was no problem and there was no rush to get back. But we quickly realized that our light kicks weren't doing much against the current and we had to power kick to make any headway at all. After 10 minutes of power kicking, we were exhausted and a bit snippy. It turns out that, during the ocean-based directions argument, we were having two different arguments. Jon wanted to go North so we could fight the current underwater because the current was stronger on the surface. I wanted to go North-west toward the boat. If we had followed his way, we wouldn't have had to power kick for 10 minutes back to the boat.
There. See? I just announced that JON WAS RIGHT to everyone on the planet.
But it turns out that we weren't the only ones who had to power-kick. Alberto, Mirielle, and Thomas kicked for a good 20 minutes before they got back to the boat!
After the boat moored and we took the long boat back to shore, Jon and I signed up for our Dive Master Certification. We'd grilled Flav and Thomas about the requirements and the necessary amount of time, and we decided just to bite the bullet and do it. It's much cheaper here in Koh Tao than anywhere else in the world, and we want to get to Australia with the certification already established. It ain't cheap, but this should facilitate our job-search in Cairns in a month.
AC's for Dinner
We were absolutely starving, so we went to a place called AC's for dinner. AC's is a restaurant/bar down the dirt road a bit that shows a different movie every night on their big-screen TV. Tonight, it was "What Women Want". We sat at a low table on cushions, and put our feet down the deck-hole beneath the table. So our feet were dangling over the sand, but we were on the deck with our dinner. The ocean was so quiet and peaceful, and the music from the bar was very laid-back and relaxing. We each had a beer that was so cold and completely hit the spot.
At 8:00, the movie started so we hung out and watched it. After about an hour and a half (which is when the funny part of the movie ends and the rest is just cheese), we decided to hit the Internet Cafe for a quick check of emails. Then we went off to bed.