Today was another early start, had to be at the shop for 9:00 for our final day of training. We went out to Bida Nok and did some skills, specifically a Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent and some buoyancy control, mask clearing and so on. We then went for an explore and saw some cool stuff, more about that later. Lunch was again delicious, Massaman curry and morning glory this time. In the afternoon we dived at Maya Corner on Phi Phi Lei, practicing navigation and mask loss , and swam to the pinnacles - these are small underwater limestone towers that are covered in coral, and sometimes form tunnels to swim through, full of schools of fish. This we did, it was really incredible being in the midst of the schools, they pretty much ignored us and just kept swimming by. I can't remember what we saw on which dive, but in total we saw Large Trevally, Oriental Sweetlips, various Scorpionfish, a Cube Boxfish (a little yellow cube that bobbed along in a ridiculous manner), Banded Boxer Shrimp, Moray Eels (including a giant white one which Wade had never seen before), Lionfish, Crown Of Thorns Starfish, and another Hawksbill Turtle - I took my camera on the second dive, so I should hopefully have some pictures of some of these. We went back and sat the final exam in the shop, I think we all got 45+/50 and passed, so we are now all PADI Certified Open Water Divers, capable of diving anywhere in the world down to 18m! Awesome, I have achieved my main objective of coming to Thailand. I went for a wander when we got back, and achieved another goal - I managed to change my flight (finally) from Singapore to Denpasar from the 19th of February to the 18th of March, meaning I now have enough time to go to the full moon, the Perhentian Islands, see a bit of Malaysia and Singapore before jetting off to Bali/Lombok/the Gili Islands.
We assembled at half seven to watch the video from today - Andrew was on the boat and diving with us with a camera, the video looked awesome and was really cool, although it's 1800 baht/nearly ฃ25 to buy it on DVD, which is a shame, but I'll probably end up buying it anyway. I went for dinner and was sitting on my own when a guy came and asked if he could join me, he was from San Francisco and called Matthew, and we shared a Papaya Salad and Tom Kah Goong (Shrimp curry soup thing), as we both wanted both. he seemed like a pretty cool chap, he bought a tent in Phuket and is camping on the beach here for free - a smart move on this extortionate island. back at the shop it was Hannah and Ruth's last night (they have been here for 6 months, doing dissertations/working in bars/mincing around) before returning to England, so we had some farewell drinks and a reasonably raucous time. jan and I headed down to Sunflower bar afterwards for a quiet drink or two, and met some of his mates, including a guy from the US called JP. I went to get drinks, and on my return jan came out and told me we were going, now. I had no idea why and followed, then I saw JP and one of the guys from the tattoo shop having a row - well, the tattoo guy was shouting about how he wanted JP out, he didn't have any problem with the rest of us, just JP. JP replied with "I have nothing but love for you - I open up my heart and give you all of Buddha's love" which threw the guy off a bit, long enough for us to make a hasty exit. Apparently the guy had never spoken to JP before, was high on Yabba or something and took exception to JP for one of two reasons - because he's black, or because he probably got with a girl that the guy wanted. This left JP understandably rather shaken, so we went and chatted on the beach a while, along with Dave, the most Californian man I have ever seen, think a San Diegan Anthony Keidis with blonde hair and you've pretty much got him. We discussed various matters, including Philip Morris Tobacco being founded by the KKK, Coke backing the Nazis, the Charisma of Bill Clinton, Martin Sheen and Fidel Castro, the American political system (again, this seems to be coming up a lot recently) and the (non)existence of Heaven, God, etc. It was good, he's a really easy guy to chat to and get along with, and has a lot of interesting tales to tell - he brought Yoga and Capoeira to the school he works at in Downtown LA, and did mention the phrase "Heart Chakra" at one point, but other than that all was well.
Oh, when I got home there were a big group of Canadons in the street next door, who were shouting "Canada!" at every passer-by, and got into a singing match with some Aussies and English guys, which went on for far too long. I could only find one earplug as well, which didn't help matters at all. Also I seem to have lost my debit card, I remember taking it out of my wallet for some reason and putting it somewhere else, wuite possibly just in my pocket, but I have just sorted through all my possessions (which needed doing anyway), moved the bed, checked every pocket/pouch/bag that I have, and there's no sign of it. I'm going to check at the Dive shop, then I suppose I will have to report it lost and get a new one sent to Australia or Singapore, depending how long it'll take. This is all a bit annoying...
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