Scuba School

Far from lounging on the beach all day, “scuba school” kept me busy and left me weary but was such a treat. The first morning began in a classroom, watching videos and listening to lectures to get some of the theory down before actually getting in the water. That afternoon, we began our pool work at a nearby resort. We probably looked as funny as I felt to have so much gear on for such a shallow depth, but it was great to have the place to ourselves as I attempted to unlearn holding my breath. The biggest surprise came when I had to swim to the other end of the pool and discovered a bunch of legs in speedos—we were no longer alone and the European guests had returned. Thankfully class was soon over for the day, and I finally had a chance to walk along the copper-colored sand on the beach and watch the setting sun over the water.

The next day began even earlier as we took a speedboat out to the Similan Islands. The water was that same sapphire blue I’d seen in Zanzibar, and I was happy just to be there. I was also relieved that unlike my trip to the Great Barrier Reef, the seas were calm and I didn’t get seasick. We did our briefings/lectures on the boat so we could dive as soon as we arrived at the islands, and I used other downtime to complete the swimming and floating requirements that are normally done in a pool. Why swim laps in a pool when you can swim laps around a boat, admiring the fish and the beautiful water?

On my very first dive, I saw the one creature I had really wanted to see: a hawksbill sea turtle. Talk about beginner’s luck! Again, I was so content we could’ve stopped there, but it takes four dives to get certified (two each day). We saw such a gorgeous variety of fish, coral, and other sea creatures that I quickly wore out my dive master’s “scuba sign language” vocab as I kept asking her to identify everything. I’m glad we wrote most of it in my dive log, and I’m almost ashamed to say that I began to take some of it for granted like “Oh, more damsel fish, trumpet fish, trigger fish, clown fish, glass fish, etc….” Honestly, picture “Finding Nemo” or the fanciest fish tank you’ve ever seen and that’s about it. We also saw an eel, a creature that I have an irrational fear of, so I was grateful that we didn’t stay long and never saw another.

The other benefit to scuba diving in Thailand is lunch! Again, I was grateful for a full appetite and thoroughly enjoyed a tasty curry lunch on the upper deck overlooking the water. The visibility was excellent and you could see some fish near the surface, including large schools of a species that swam right near the surface so you could see their ripples on the water in the distance.

Thanksgiving Day I received my certification. Talk about a lot to be grateful for! Again we had perfect weather and gorgeous scenery, and I added lion fish, barracuda, and a leopard shark to my dive list. During our lunch break, I even had a quick trip to the main island to climb to a rock overlooking the bay. The white coral sand was perfect, and again, I could’ve been content to spend the day just sitting there in paradise. Putting on my “professional tree hugger” hat, I asked my dive master about the health of Similan Islands National Park on the ride back to the mainland. It’s closed during the stormiest months of the year, and in fact just opened for the season a few weeks before I arrived. I asked her if those months allowed the wildlife to recover from the onslaught of tourists, and was surprised by her answer. “Normally, yes…but this is Thailand” and went on to explain that when the Park is closed to tourist boats, fishing boats come in illegally because there are fewer people to spot and report them. Each season she notices fewer large fish than she’d seen at the end of the previous season. So unlike the Great Barrier Reef that’s being loved to death, in this location divers are actually ensuring its continued survival.

That night, I celebrated by getting a massage and mani/pedi that ended up taking so long that the restaurants had all closed by the time I’d finished. So instead of a gluttonous Thanksgiving feast, I had a slothful evening and topped it off with a street food called Roti, a fried crepe topped with fruit, sweetened condensed milk, or chocolate.