Look at the fish

Koh Tao means "Turtle Island" because once upon a time, a lot of sea turtles inhabited the surrounding waters. The island is located in the Gulf of Thailand which is part of the Pacific Ocean. We're 70 kilometers from shore. When you look out on the horizon, all you can see is water and far in the distance, some neighboring islands.

On Thursday, I initiated Gregg into the world of snorkelling. We were picked up and rode to the pier in the back of a truck with a Swiss couple and a Belgian girl. Mr. Swiss didn't speak English so well. On his stomach, he had the Chinese characters for "woman" and "strong". I asked if he chose that because his wife is a strong woman. He thought the first character means love. Maybe it does, but it was weird.

We were disappointed because we didn't see any reef sharks, but the variety of fish observed made up for it. If you've ever seen the movie "Finding Nemo", it's like being thrust into that world with a rainbow of fish swimming right before your eyes. Sometimes, schools of fish would swim inches from our goggles. Snorkelling in Thailand is unreal.

Our last stop was at three islands just northeast of Koh Tao. It's the only place in the world where three islands are connected by a single beach at low tide. They make you pay to even get on the islands. We snorkelled some more and had naps on the coral beach.

Friday, we slept in and then rented a motorbike to explore the island. In some places, giant boulders lie haphazardly with palm trees sprouting around them. After enjoying some air conditioning in good old 7-Eleven. we motored up a hill to the Happy Daze bar, a treehouse overlooking one of the southern bays. Everyone there was definitely in some kind of happy daze. They were all chilled out. We had an interesting conversation with a couple of birds. They could say, "Hello, Darling!" "How are you?" "I can fly!" "Bye Bye". We felt moderately crazy talking to birds, but it was cool. A poor monkey on a chain kept pacing while one of his owners was cleaning a bong. We climbed up a series of ladders to the top deck where we could look out over the bay. Beautiful. The rest of the day, we bummed around, bought board shorts, and sat at the beach.

Today, we went SCUBA DIVING! It seems so surreal. I still can't fathom what an awesome experience it was. Since we are going back to Canada and are unsure of further opportunities, we opted to do the one day Discover Scuba program and hope to get certified some other vacation. A super guy named David was our personal instructor for the day. He outfitted us and told us what to do. Out on the boat, we suited up with wetsuits, fins, inflatable vests, goggles, weight belts, and an air tank - the whole nine yards. It's pretty heavy. We stepped out into the beautiful blue water and practiced some skills on shore at Mango Bay. Then we followed him deeper into the ocean. We both experienced some difficulty learning to control our buoyancy and a few times floated to the surface like a balloon in the sky. The visibility wasn't the best, but the exhilaration of being underwater and seeing a few fish was enough. We thought we'd only been under a few minutes, but suddenly the 35 minutes of our first dive was up. Afterwards, I was so happy I was grinning like an idiot. Gregg said it looked like I was posing for a school photo. He was happy too.

A little break for pineapple, coffee and cookies, and then dive number two beside the three islands to an area called the Japanese garden. Gregg lost his weight belt and couldn't descend so David had to go look for it. We followed the rope of the anchor to the bottom and wandered around the coral garden. I have a burn on my leg after a run in with our motorcycle in Ninh Binh. Shiny cleaner fish kept latching on to it. I was fish food. We saw a huge puffy starfish and other fish that we hadn't seen when snorkelling. Our greatest depth was only about six meters, but at that depth, we could already feel a little bit of the ocean's pressure. It's hard to describe scuba diving unless you're talking to someone who's done it. It's one of the coolest things we've ever done. And we definitely want to do it again.

Tomorrow, we head to Koh Phangan to check out the remnants of the last full moon party and to bum around on swimming beaches. And Grant, if you're not reading this, you're in trouble. You better post a comment.