Koh Tao - Eleanor is now much more advance

Second week on Koh Tao and father time is doing that funny thing after staying a couple of weeks in one place and is starting to race by, we have scoped out all the best places to eat: coffee boat for yummy crispy beef and green curry and drink, Lotus bar for happy hour 4-7pm, 50 baht for a G&T and the sunset is free, and the best route to and from work (Scuba Junction), up a jungle path beside Tommy's apartment. El does not believe me about the rattlesnakes in the grass, but I am sure that I saw them.

Eleanor finished off her advance SSI course last night with a "night" dive, I was very proud of her and we went out with the Junction gang and treated her to a veg lasagna as a treat. She decided, in the end, to scrap the teaching and yoga and just do diving instead.

The night dives here are a bit crap as a million divers plus loads of boat lights not to mention a near full moon, was not conducive to the night part of the dive, more like slightly muggy.

The advanced course means that she can now dive to 30 Meters and can proceed to the Rescue Diver course, where she gets to kiss a dolly and save people and carry them up the ladder into the boat. I think she would prefer not to carry me up, but so far has been too polite to say anything, most unlike her I thought!

We have moved upstairs within the same apartment block and now have a view and a sofa and hammock, the next morning after we moved I took a day off and did not move from the hammock apart from calls of nature or to fill up on coka cola.

Monkey is monkey does (fantasic wooden statue outside a bar)


I have been working hard on my divemaster course and have finished three exams so far. Today was the hardest and most interesting, which was the physics exam.

Example Question:
If you dropped an outboard motor weighing 120Kg to the bottom of the ocean, remembering that 1 litre of sea water weights 1.03kg (thank you Napoleon for inventing the metric system otherwise it would be in pounds and cubic feet, a bit harder) and the engine displaces 50 litres of water, calculate the amount of water you would need to displace using an air bag to make the engine positively buoyant (float).

One of the student could not "get it" and thus we had to sit there most of the afternoon until they did, so I missed the afternoon diving which was a shame as I was looking forward to diving in a new site.

We spent yesterday in the reef off the main Sairee beach, practicing demonstrating the 20 open water course tasks that we will have to show student divers. It was really funny being on the other side of the fence as it was, by learning to do what an instructor has been showing you in all your other courses. Most of it is almost like learning sign language as you have to be able to communicate under water with the students "You watch me, I am going to remove and replace scuba mask" for example.

Quite a laugh when someone gets it wrong (a South African called Jason) by removing his scuba unit the wrong way and nearly ripping the second stage (mouth piece that you breath from) from his mouth. Amazing how much information you can get from someones body language, in that case I was behind him with my shoulders going up and down, quite fast :-).

We are all working up to be able to lead a group in a dive while pointing out fish of interest, navigating back to the boat so they do not get lost, and keeping them alive if they are having problems. The group is a really nice bunch of people and the pace is nice and relaxed.

We are still loving the island and I am over the moon that Eleanor is doing the diving as it gives us a really nice common interest, but I am a bit annoyed that she is better than me at it, the first time she dived in Gillis was like she had been diving for ever, but then no one said that courting wonder women was ever going to be easy!!