Day 139 (Sunday 2nd) - Sharks and Ladyboys
We convened at the dive shop right on time, and headed out to Chumpon Pinnacle for our first dive. We went down to 30m, and I must say this dive shop is really unprofessional - our instructor, Gannon, asked if we had read the book and done the knowledge reviews, to which we replied no, as we don't even have the advanced manual. This appeared to be fine, he asked us what we remembered from the manual - again, nothing, as we haven't got one - and this also appeared to be fine. He told us what to do, said we'd be doing a couple of minor skills on the bottom, testing our mental agility etc, to see if we were narked at all by the depth. We jumped in, swam down, did the tests and then staarted the dive - within about 10 minutes we saw a shark - a Grey reef Shark to be precise, about 2, long, swimming about 10 m away from us. This was really cool, as we had been told we might see some, but thought they only said that to persuade us to dive. A little while later we saw another one, about the same size, but missed the school of Barracuda that were also nearby, apparently. Due to our increased air consumption at depth, this dive was over in about 35 minutes.
Our second dive was the navigation dive - again, our lack of preparation didn't seem to be a problem. Also, as there were some girls there who had been fundiving with them for a while who were leaving the next day, a lot of the instructors/divemasters were in fancy dress - Gannon had a mexican-ish scarf and hat, as well as a pistol and sunglasses, all of which he wore throughout our entire dive. We had to measure distances in fin kicks, swim in a square using our compasses, and then came the real test - Gannon took us out on a random course, ditched us, and we had to find our way back. We were fairly confident initially, pretty sure where we were going, until I noticed we were 6m deeper than we should have been, and there were unfamiliar rock formations all around. We tried to correct our course, swam around completely lost for a bit, and then found the mooring line and Gannon completely by chance, coming from the exact opposite direction to where we should have been. Gannon seemed fine with this, so we carried on and finished the dive. Druce went on to do another dive in the afternoon, meaning he has now completed his advanced course, whereas I still have two more dives to go. Exhausted after the dive, I napped in the afternoon and then met up with Lisa and Nina, who I had met on Koh Phangan. We decided to go to the Queen's Cabaret Ladyboy show, which started at 11 - I tried to get Druce and Will to come too, but they were both exhausted (Druce did do 4 dives today, I suppose). It was a wierd show, mainly consisting of glitzily dressed ladyboys miming to Shakira/Dolly Parton/Various over the top songs, with the occasional grotesque 'comedy' interlude, generally involving a fake penis somewhere, and in one case squirting breasts. Nothing graphic, more carry-on style than anything else. There was a family just next to us who had brought their kids, who I am sure will be far more well-rounded thanks to the experience.
Day 140 (Monday 3rd) - Freedom and Farewell
In the morning we rented some motorbikes - really just scooters with scrambler tires - and headed to freedom beach for a last bit of island sunshine before the guys returned to Bangkok. It was bakingly hot, which I attribute to my playing every song I have with sunshine in the title before we headed out. We had a drink in Freedom Bar, walked round the headland to Chaloklum Bay (I think), and rode back slowly to town, where the guys caught their ferry to Chumpon. I'm pretty sure I'll be heading to Tresco before the summer's out, it sounds.looks awesome, and it's been really cool hanging out with Druce again. I spent the afternoon figuring out what I'm doing next - this involves me going to Suratthani (5th) via Samui (4th) (I want to do some last minute cheesy souvenir shopping before leaving Thailand, this seems like the best place), getting a night train to Sungai Kolok on the border, then crossing over into Malaysia, getting a train to Kota Bharu and then a boat to Pulau Perhentian (the Perhentian Islands) for a couple of days (6th), maybe diving again, then down to the Tamin Negara rainforest (10th), Kuala Lumpur (12th) and on to Singapore (15th), before my flight out to Bali on the, umm, well it's either the 18th or 22nd, I forget. These are all very rough dates, but at least I know I can make it in time. I'm pretty sure it's the 18th, I'll have to find a JAL office somewhere and check.
In the evening I met Lisa and we went bowling, played pool and Minigolf, all at the Koh Tao Bowling complex. It was pretty rustic, they had 4 wooden lanes with a bloke at the end sticking up the pins, who had a charming habit of, if you had got 9 down, moving the last pin into the path of the ball - even if it was in the gutter. I attribute my 120 in the first game to this, I think. we both sucked at Minigolf, although it was a pretty spectacular course, involving a 2 storey yellow castle, among other impressive holes. Also, I drove us both to and from the Minigolf, without so much as a hint of a crash or a wobble, my first time with a passenger!
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