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! :-)