Certified

Papa George

I have just taken grinning fool to a whole new level. I came up from my second dive today and did that thing that world record breaking Olympic swimmers do when they see their time. I smacked the water a few times, lay on my back and whooped. Then I smacked the water again. Today was the best.

I slept so badly last night, and the two nights before, and realise I still have some way to go in order to get a handle on my monkey-mind. Frustratingly, it remains the case that in the wee hours, all bets are off. Sometimes I don’t realise just how worried I am until I find myself wide awake in the middle of the night and the idea of getting back to sleep a hopeless fantasy. Yesterday’s diving was good, thoroughly imperfect but improving, and my initial fear had noticeably diminished. I had done my homework and revision, and there was nothing else to be done. But still, no sleep. At least, not good sleep. Sleep that counts. So when I got out of bed this morning and headed to Koppee for breakfast and to meet Pod, it’s fair to say I wasn’t feeling my best. But thankfully, unflappable Pod was good to go.

Pod had decided that I should get the theoretical exam done straight away. He said I was likely to be tired after two more dives so best to get it done first thing with a fresh mind. Ha. Little did he know. But the exam was actually a multiple choice test consisting of 50 questions and I aced it. It was a good start to the day and definitely took the pressure off. I just had one more skills test to complete, the emergency ascent, and then fun-diving all the way.

And fun-diving it was. We went to two different dive sites, Tanote Bay, to a catamaran wreck (and much to my surprise, a motorbike wreck, guarded by a damsel fish named Peter), and Shark Island. I did my longest dive yet of 56 minutes and went to a depth of 18 metres. I don’t know what that means to any seasoned divers out there, but for me, it’s on a par with a moonwalk. I saw bright yellow boxfish and was engulfed in a school of barracuda. I saw angelfish, butterflyfish and batfish, sadly no sharks, but giant grouper, and quite a few unnecessarily aggressive titan triggerfish. And perhaps my favourite of all, a blue-spotted ribbon-tail ray. I saw beautiful corals, spiral and table, and nudibranchs and Christmas tree worms. Really, far too many to mention and more to the point, far too many that I simply don’t know the names of. It was quite overwhelming. I had no idea that fish just hang out. They don’t swim around constantly like I imagined they did, they just hang and chill. We were surrounded. And it was just beautiful.

This evening, I celebrated with fried banana in rum sauce and vanilla ice cream. And if I can’t sleep because of all the sugar, it doesn’t matter. The conservation students were celebrating their achievements too and Koppee was a very jolly place to be. Tomorrow mid-morning I’m meeting Pod and he’s going to take me mask and snorkel shopping at Mae Haad. He talks about my European nose as if I need specialist advice and equipment. And I think I’ve more or less decided that after a weekend of basking, I’m going to spend two days next week gaining my Advanced Open Water certification. Koh Tao is a mecca for beginner divers, the weather has been perfect, my instructor is a dream, and my little hillside, fan-room is as cheap as chips. I reckon I’d be some other kind of fool not to.