The last hurrah

Well so much for civilisation. As you can probably tell from the last boring entry, I was bored in Krabi!

With only 12 days to go before I flew home to England, I had a choice. While away my few remaining days in a hammock getting fat on sun-downers or pull myself together and go for one last burst of adventurous spirit and learn to dive.

I had to get a minibus from Krabi up to Chumphon from where I was going to catch the high-speed ferry to Koh Tao. The rickety pier didn't inspire confidence,

but the sight of the tiny island of Koh Tao hoving into view two hours later was a delight - my final meaningful destination, on a beautiful day, and home in less than two weeks. Amazing.

Unfortunately my hotel rained on my parade, having promised me a pick-up at the pier. I'd told them which ferry I was arriving on, but the ferry was half an hour late. Instead of waiting for the ferry to turn up, when it didn't show the driver just left. Dick.

Taxis don't really exist on Koh Tao, it's just fellas with SUVs. You sling you backpack into the bay and away you go.

As I arrived at Sairee Village, I had the distinct feeling that I was a bit too old for this type of Thai resort. The average age cannot, literally, have been more than 18 or 19. This was true gap year territory.

I couldn't help thinking as I walked around the Ibiza-esque style town how easy travelling here, Koh Phi Phi, Koh Pangan and Koh Samui is. This lot should try The Philippines or Japan!

Don't get me wrong, I was grateful for the opportunity to eat Aussie steaks, buy English papers, and be able to communicate with shopowners and waiters. But this was too easy. It was just like Tenerife or Ibiza.

How far I'd come from the timid scaredy cat who didn't eat for three days in Buenos Aires!

Sairee beach wasn't great, given over as it, and most of the island, is to dive boats belching oil slicks which made beach swimming a little nasty.

I had a nice little bungalow though,

with a lovely hammock. Just as I'd imagined Thailand should be!

After a day of hammock swinging - there's no need to rush these things - I booked myself on to an Open Water Diver course. And boy am I glad I did.

I was nervous about it, I admit. For a start I had 20 kilos (conservatively!) and nearly 20 years on most of the instructors, let alone my fellow students. I smoke and drink too much and was worried about how fit you need to be to scuba. Fortunately, PADI says the key to diving is "not to over-exert yourself".

Sold. Sign me up.

The next morning (at 6am - damn these early starts!) I lined up at the school with my little text book to watch a load of training videos and splash about in the pool, learn to empty my mask underwater and breath through a regulator. Not very exciting. So far, so so.

But the next day, with the first sea dive, everything changed. I think my first words as we surfaced were "That was effing amazing!"

The next week was spent in a cycle of studying,

driving round the island to various launch sites,

and loading tanks and gear onto various dive boats.

There are 44 diving schools on Koh Tao, so it makes for some pretty crowded dive sites when the weather is a bit dodgy.

But when you got into the water, everything changed. As your head sinks below the surface, all the people disappear and the noise diminishes to the gentle bubbling of your regulator. It's magical.

I was in a mercifully small group of just three. Some schools will take between 8 and 10 students out, but I'd been advised to avoid these places.

It made the whole experience so much more enjoyable, and it's hard enough trying to learn from an instructor with only hand signals to communicate with let alone another 8 people bumping and kicking you.

When you surface, the chaos returns and what seemed weightless in the water suddenly weighs alot more. Particularly as you're knackered and try and climb your way out of the water into the boat.

But everyone is always in good spirits after a dive, comparing notes on what they've seen, what skills they've mastered. It was great fun.

I loved it so much, I stayed on another few days to do the Advanced Open Water course. It meant sacrificing time in Bangkok, but this was way to good an opportunity to regret taking.

After mastering the basics in Open Water, in the Advanced course you have to do five more dives devoted to particular skills. Mine were search and recovery, so if anyone loses an outboard overboard, I'm your man; navigation; peak performance bouancy, where you learn to float on your head and swim through hoops using your breath; a night dive; and a deep dive.

The night dive was terrifying, but the deep dive was the most fun. Descending to 30m, it was the first time I looked down and couldn't see the bottom.

We learnt about the effects of nitrogen narcosis and the way colours change the deeper you go. This fish is actually a Nemo fish and would be bright orange. But because we're at 30m the red light is filtered out and so he appears muddy brown.

He's still cute though.

After doing the little navigation skills test I had to do - basically using a compass underwater and finding your way round some formations, nothing too tricky - we had a bit of time and air left so detoured off to a cave system.

It was pretty scary, but we saw some of the most amazing wildlife of my whole time in Koh Tao.

This is a sting ray lurking under an overhang.

And then it was just a succession of amazingly colourful creatures, to weird to name. I had no idea what they were, well aside from coral, anemone etc, but they were stunning to see.

I'm not sure if scuba is a hobby I will be able to afford to maintain - I would love to be able to dive when I get to Australia - but if I never do it again my time on Koh Tao is a memory I will treasure forever.