PADI Certified

Well, I was hoping to write each day of my certification process but it ended up that I had so much studying to do that it took all my time and there was no time left for writing! So, here is a brief summary of my experience:

Day 2-I met with my instructor, Kev, and we went over the homework quizzes we had been assigned the night before. He talked a lot about things we needed to know, explaining how scuba diving works. In the afternoon we got fitted for gear and headed to the pool where we had to take a 200 meter swimming test and then float for 10 minutes. Basically you have to show that you feel comfortable in the water before they allow you to continue on. Luckily I passed the test. I put on my scuba equipment got into the pool and took my first breaths underwater. While in the pool we practiced a lot of worst case scenario situations. We learned to take our respirators out of our mouths and replace them, take off our masks and replace them, etc. We also worked on controlling our buoyancy. That was a bit more difficult than I expected. The 3 of us in the class kept bumping into each other and floating to the top...it was pretty comical. After several hours in the water the day came to an end. We were given 2 more chapters to study...This is turning out to be much more studying than I anticipated.

Day 3-This morning we went over the chapters we were given to study the night before. It was hard to fit all that information into my head in such a short period of time but I did it! I passed all the quizzes and that afternoon we headed out for our first real dive! I was nervous but excited. We would do 2 dives each lasting about 30-40 minutes at 12 meters. We headed out in a boat with several other divers at differing levels. The water was choppy and setting up the equipment while the boat was moving made some unsettled stomaches. I'm not prone to sea sickness but I could definitely understand one could feel that way after that experience! We got to our dive location, suited up and jumped in. Down we went into the water...down, down, down, stopping to equalize our ears every few feet. We weren't underwater to enjoy the scenery just yet. We were there to practice the skills we had learned in the pool setting. My mask kept fogging up so I didn't see much around me but I passed all the skills and I didn't drown! The second dive was more skill practicing and a little more swimming around. It was so cool! I was doing it! I was swimming with schools of fish, admiring the coral...very cool.

Day 4-The last day started at 6 AM. We gathered our equipment, loaded into the truck that took us to the pier where we crawled across one boat to get into the boat that would take us to our dive locations. We would do 2 more dives to finish demonstrating we could do each of the skills. It was amazing except that it took so long for one guy to get to the bottom (20 minutes to be exact) that by the time we were all at the bottom we didn't have much time to pass off the skills AND swim around. A bit frustrating but...we are all learning so, it's all good. The last skill we had to do was to practice an emergency, out of air ascent. Let's pray that I never find myself in such a situation...but just in case, I know how to handle it. Once we had passed our skills we loaded the boat and headed back to the resort for the final exam...which, thankfully, I passed!!

That's all there is to it! Just a whole lot of studying...lots of worst-case-scenario skill practicing and if all goes well you end up with a dive license and a dive log book where you log each of your dives, the depth of your dive, the length of the dive, the water temperature, what you saw, etc. We filled out our books, logging our 4 dives and walked away excited for future dives, which I'll write about in my next post.

PADI Certification-Day 1

As a birthday present to myself I decided to become certified to scuba dive. It was one of my goals when I moved here so no time like my present (haha)! I chose the island of Koh Tao as my location as I had heard that it was a diving hot spot. I requested the week off of work recruited a friend to join me and found another 2 friends who were also planning to head to the island to do some diving. In Thailand this is a 3 day weekend in celebration of Buddhist Lent.

We boarded a bus Friday night for the 6 hour bus ride to the pier where we loaded a boat that took us 2 hours to the island. I don't remember much about the bus ride as I was able to sleep pretty peacefully, curled up on the bench seat assigned to 2 of us. We arrived at 6:30 and went in search of transportation to the resort we were hoping had accommodations for us. We found the truck, loaded up and off we went. The island is beautiful! Fine, light colored sand, light blue water, palm trees and huge rock formations. I think this might be paradise!

Since we arrived so early nothing was open. Two of the friends I had come already have their basic certification and are hoping to get the next level. They were certain this resort is where they wanted to be. My friend and I who are not yet certified decided to wander up and down the island a bit to see if there were any better options for us. But, like I said, almost nothing was open we were able to talk to one place that sounded pretty good and then we decided to have breakfast until other places opened up.

We found a cute little Thai owned restaurant along the way and went in. After ordering all the things on the menu they DIDN'T have I finally ordered a pancake and 2 eggs with fresh pineapple juice. The juice came out and and I was ready for a glass of fresh juice. I put the straw in my mouth and took a good, big swig. To my dismay the juice had quite a bite to it! I think the pineapple was a little old! It was not drinkable but my Thai was not sufficient to convey that message to the girl serving us and her English was BARELY good enough to take our order! So, I was stuck with the nasty juice which I made my friend try and confirm that it was indeed disgusting!

After breakfast we went back to our original resort, learned about their diving course and accommodations and decided to book there. Unfortunately, our room, the last one they had available would not be available until 1:00 as the current occupant was out diving. So, we decided to hang out on the beach until then. It was extremely overcast and looked like it would rain at any moment. The wind was blowing and it felt nice to sit and enjoy the beautiful view.

Four hours later we checked into our room. I looked down at myself and found that I had spent way too much time in the sun. Yes...I was sunburnt! Day 1 and I'm already toasted to a crisp! UGH!!! Wish I'd had access to my sunscreen! Wish the clouds had blocked the suns rays enough not to burn me. Oh well. My feet and ankles are swollen and I'm pink!

We showered and prepared for our diving course that started at 3. Today was just a basic orientation. We filled out paperwork and watched 2 movies explaining a lot of information. Then we took a knowledge quiz and did great! We were done for the day so we took our books to an indian restaurant for dinner to celebrate my birthday. It was delicious!

What a great birthday and a wonderful start to a birthweek celebration! :-) Getting older isn't as bad as I thought it might be! :-)

Ayuthaya, Thailand

Saturday I went on an Embassy sponsored trip to Ayuthaya (the "th" do not make a "th" sound like in english...just a "t" sound). My friend who works for the embassy signed us up. We met at the embassy at 7:30 and rode a bus the 90 minutes to get there. Our first stop was Bang Pa-In Palace. Ayuthaya was anciently the capitol of Thailand. A palace was constructed in Bang Pa-In during those days but after the fall of Ayuthaya it was left to be overgrown and in disrepair. The palace was revived in the 1800's and is quite lovely!

The next stop was Wat Mahathat home of the Buddha head embedded in twisted tree roots. This Khmer style temple built in the 14th century was burned down by the Burmese during an invasion. The ruins themselves are impressive!

The final stop was Wat Phrasisanpeth. I'm afraid I don't know much about this Wat other than it was built in the 1400s and also burned by the Burmese since as I wandered to the entrance I was bombared by school children with the assignment to practice their English. They each had a paper for me to write my name and my email address and a lot of other questions I just couldn't get to! They practiced their English and were patient while I practiced speaking Thai. After signing about 20 papers and getting multiple photos taken and shaking each students hand at least once I was finally able to slip away, into the walls of the Wat, only to be snached up by university students of tourism doing a survey. So, I didn't see much of this ruined Wat but got a few photos.

After this stop we got back on the tour bus and headed to the pier where we were picked up by a small cruise boat that had lunch waiting for us. I enjoyed an international buffet as we cruised the 2.5 hours back to Bangkok. It was a lovely day except that sometime before lunch my friend got food poisoned. YUCK! Hard to tell what it was since the only thing we had eaten before lunch was fried bananas and fruit, which we shared and neither effected me. strange. So I had to drive us back in her car to her apartment. Driving the streets of Bangkok on the left side of the road was nerve-racking! We made it with minimal damage to her car (I took a turn to sharp and met up with the curb...oops).

As soon as I can figure out where my photos are I'll post them! :-)

Finding Balance

I've now attended 8 Thai language classes and already I'm forming basic sentences. Dichan poot paasaa thai nitnoi. I try to use the vocabulary I've learned whenever possible but I definitely need more practice. My sweet tutor speaks so slowly during our 90 minutes together Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Sometimes I feel badly for making her start our lessons at 7 AM but mornings are the only part of my day I feel I have control over. I now know basic family members, several adjectives and verbs, question words, some professions, foods and such. My flash card collection is growing and I love adding new words to the stack. In a meeting with staff the other day I tried out a few phrases and wowed them all. :-) It sure feels good to be challenging my brain like this! It's a great brain work out.

I'm also working out physically. On the mornings when I'm not at language classes I'm at Bootcamp. That's what they call it and that's what it feels like! It's a strength building workout that involves lots of pushups of various kinds, squats, jumping, running and all sorts of crazy exercises. Boy was I sore after the first week!!! It's exciting that after just a few weeks I'm making lots of progress and while I can definitely feel my muscles after an intense work out, I'm nowhere near as sore as that first week! On Saturday we had time trials where we were timed running about 2 kilometers. I was so sad to see how slow I've become after not running as much as I used to while living in Utah. Not having Cheri, my running partner, to get me up every morning coupled with the intense heat that makes running so uncomfortable here has diminished my desire. But I'm growing strong in other ways, using different muscles now, and it feels so good.

I'm up by 5 every morning which is an exercise of self control for sure! And if I'm not in bed by 9:00 each night that self control is really tested!! I've changed my work hours to 9-6 to allow me to have the mornings to focus on my physical, mental and spiritual strengthening. Having the balance of physical, mental and spiritual workouts makes me feel complete.