I like pancakes, and scuba diving.

I don’t idle well. After my first couple of days in Thailand, I decided I needed to do something mildly more stimulating than island hopping or eating pancakes, although I’m still doing plenty of the latter (and they are some d*** good pancakes, I might add). I set out for Koh Tao, a small island in the gulf of Thailand famous for the plethora of dive shops on the island and being well known as one of the best and cheapest places you can learn to scuba dive.

I decided to get my Rescue Diver certification, since I am already open water and advanced open water certified, and this is the final pre-requisite I would need if I decided to get my divemaster certification. Which I would like to do at some point.

Over the course of 4 days I learned Emergency First Aid, how to identify and resolve emergency scenarios that could occur before, during or after a dive, and ways of addressing or preventing common problems divers could encounter.

I had an excellent instructor, and I am so thankful for him putting up with me for 4 days ha! Just kidding, but seriously, Sa Scha was great and thanks to him I’m a qualified Rescue Diver now. But don’t make me use it.

Practicing saving my instructor. Facial expressions make it more effective.

It was really good to get back into the water. I love scuba diving, and doing this course reminded me just how much I enjoy it, even if I get super stressed out my first time or two back in the water. Just being out on a boat, in the ocean, surrounded by water, there’s something about that that I find really relaxing and enjoyable. Those 4 days went by quick.

To celebrate my achievement I walked to the main beach area to watch the sunset. Unfortunately it had been cloudy the last couple of days and we even had a thunderstorm one night that flooded the streets with water. Outside of the hostel I was staying in, the water was over a foot high! The point being, there wasn’t much sunsetting happening.

I tried to wait it out with a drink, and by drink I mean a coconut. Which is the best kind of drink after a long sweaty day of saving people’s lives.

When my course finished I still had an extra day in Koh Tao before I decided I was going to leave for Bangkok, so Sa Scha and I went diving just for fun. I didn’t take any pictures, which is alright because even if I had, you still wouldn’t see anything. The visibility happened to be absolutely non-existent the day we decided to fun dive. If I stretched my fin out in front of me I could barely make it out, thats how bad it was. Fish? Eh, more like dark blobs vaguely swimming around me like ghosts. I mostly ran into rocks and Sa Scha the whole time. So. Not the best use of my time, but life goes on.

And then it was time to say goodbye! I ended up spending 8 days in Koh Tao and it was mostly perfect. It was super relaxing, I stayed at an awesome hostel, and got to learn some new skills and eat a large amount of chicken sandwiches and banana pancakes.