Posts Tagged ‘SCUBA’

Tropical Paradise

For Part Two of my Last Big Thing, I wanted to make great use of our scuba certifications from Thailand and go down into the deep again.  This time it would be off the eastern tip of Borneo.  I wanted to go to the world-famous Sipadan site, a volcanic island that drops down to ocean depths of 800 or more meters in a very short distance, but didn’t plan ahead enough to go.  Sipadan is now under regulation, and it appears that the best scuba shops don’t get nearly as many permits as some of the shops that are, say, generous to the local government.  We wanted to go with Scuba Junkie (no relation to Scuba Junction from Koh Tao) which had a great reputation and a beautiful island resort at a great price – but they couldn’t get us permits for the famous spot.  So we dived beautiful Mabul Island instead, and while it may not have had huge pelagics in town it did amaze us with beautiful wildlife! (more…)

Of course it’s hard work to get certified in anything!  Well, that’s what we told ourselves before embarking for a few days’ R&R on the other side of Koh Tao.  On the east coast there are several bays which have far less development than fancy Sairee Beach.  We chose one called Tanote Bay, renowned for its snorkeling and relatively low-key atmosphere.  We scored a bungalow on the beach (!) for only $12 per night.  Since we purchased our own masks and snorkels, this was all we needed to have a relaxing snorkeling rest.

Our Beach Bungalow

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Our awesome dive shop, Scuba Junction

We arrived on Koh Tao and were met right off the boat by someone from our dive shop, Scuba Junction.  We got the paperwork out of the way, settled in to our bungalow, and got started with our SSI Open Water course!  The bungalow was very convenient because it was a 30 second walk to the dive shop, and since it’s a small town on the island it was close to everything else as well.  We set it up through Scuba Junction and got a nice discount for when we were diving.

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Since southern Thailand’s islands are a must-see on any traveler’s list, we decided to go down south in search of some sun, beaches, and SCUBA diving.  After checking out the weather patterns for the time we’d be there (late September), there was pretty much only one place where the weather would be reasonable and the diving good – Koh Tao!

After checking out of our excellent hotel in Bangkok, Penpark Place, we scrambled onto a bus early in the morning.  This bus would end up being several hours and FREEZING COLD!  The people in Southeast Asia seem to like to show off their air conditioners, and turn them on full blast whenever there is one available.  This means that trains and buses in particular are freezing and nobody seems to mind one bit while the silly westerners are shivering and chattering their teeth.  For some reason (unrelated to bus safety records in Thailand) the bus was decorated like the inside of a coffin:

Coffin Bus

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