JacobBurke->Travel: Learning to Dive

At first I didn’t want to dive. But after a few days thinking, I decided to try it out. I started the Padi open water diver course by reading the book that Padi provided me with. After I read it, I finished the test with a 98% score.

The day after I finished the test, I did the confined dive in my pool. In the dive I practiced many skills with my instructor, Nina.

Lunch time

Doing Some Skills

The next day, I went to do open water dive one. I woke up very early in the morning so I would not miss my arrival at Chalong. I was diving off of a live dive boat. The dive boat had two levels. On the bottom was the dry room, and on the top there was a sitting area. The dive boat set off at 8:30 and to Rachayi for two 50-minute dives. On the first dive, I did a few skills for ten minutes, and then dove for fun. On the dive, I saw a peacock shrimp, a lot of puffer fish and moreish idols. A bearded scorpion fish made a short visit too. The visibility was great, 20 m, so I really enjoyed the dive. When I surfaced and came back in the dive boat I got out of my gear and hurried to get lunch.

Fish

Beautiful, clear, water

Starfish

More Fish

Josh and I on the dive boat

After I was full, I got ready to dive and jumped into the bay a bit further away from the bay before. We were on the same island as the first dive. On the dive, I saw a few batfish under a cliff overhanging, and a giant moray eel. The batfish were at a cleaning station and had cleaner wrass feeding away at all the parasites. Another thing I did was a CEASER, all the way up to the surface

A giant clam

Sea Urchin

The next day, Saturday, I got up at the same time and headed to Chalong. This trip the whole family went together. When we arrived, we met my dive instructor and went onto the dive boat we were traveling in. The dive boat was mostly the same as the one we went on the day before, but it was a bit bigger. Today we were going to Phi Phi. Phi Phi is a well known for its diving.

Hawksbill Turtle

The first dive we did at Phi Phi Island was at Turtle rock. Turtle rock is known for its turtles. While we were diving we got to see a one. It was a hawksbill.

The next dive was at Kohdokmai. At Kohdokmai, there are two caves, one was to deep for me to go, but the other one I could. Before I entered it I saw a few shrimp, and other animals using my dive instructor’s flash light. The cave was pretty cool. It had no coral in it and it was dark. Unfortunately, we did not see any cool thing in it.

I am now a certified open water diver, and I can't wait till I can dive in Burma.