Ryan Matthew in Thailand

I tried posting this last night…but of course the internet was not cooperating with me last night…so here is the post from yesterday.

I got up this morning and my ear still felt like it had water in it so I headed down to see the doctor. I found out that there is an issue with my inner ear. I am going to have to take at the very least a few more days off diving. At least I didn’t keep diving yesterday or today and do more damage to it. My ear is feeling much better tonight I think it will feel normal by tomorrow.

Good news for the day is that I finally got a bike so I am not so trapped on one spot on the Island anymore. I got a little honda 125 that is like half scooter half dirt bike. Looks a little funny but it rides nice. Now I just need to remember to drive on the left side of the road….actually its not as hard as you would think.

Another good point of the day is that I reserved a much nicer bungalow than I have now. I should be able to move to it on the 1st. It is about a mile or so from the school way up on top of the mountain and the view up there is pretty awesome. I will be posting pictures after I get moved in. Oh yeah, it over looks the west side of the Island so I should have amazing sunset views!! Speaking of sunsets there was a great one tonight I posted a couple pics of it below.

Ok, this is like try number 5 on posting this post. Really it has not went well trying to post this. The internet has gone out once or twice (that happens a few times a day) The battery on my laptop went and then one or two other attempts. Anyway I am going to try again…..not the post is from yesterday at this point.

I have not had much to do today. I have just been hanging out on the porch of the dive school. I took a refresher course in the pool this afternoon and then get started diving tomorrow. Here are some pics from the porch I have been hanging out on all day yesterday and today. It is looking like I will be on this porch a lot for the next 2 months…I need to mess around with the settings on my camera I am not real happy with how these are looking…but I am going to post them anyway.

I finished up the deep diving course today. Yet another amazing day of diving. I am really wishing I had another few days to spend on Koh Tao and I would get another certification before I left. Today we got to see a sea turtle and just some really cool coral and rocks. Here is a pic of me from the dive today.

After finishing up my certification yesterday I just had to have more. Today I started getting certified to dive to 39 meters (I was just to 18 meters). So that consisted of 2 more dives today and two more tomorrow.

The first dive I went on today was just so amazing. There was a huge rock that went from the ocean floor to about 16 feet (5 meters) below the surface. We dove down to the bottom of it the total depth that we went was about 100 feet (32 meters). I saw  couple Black tipped sharks that were maybe 4 feet long. They don’t like divers so they were not very close, but I could still see them. We saw a ton of barracuda and a few tuna. And to top it off there was a family of clown fish, two adults and a baby.

The second dive was also really cool. We ended up only going down to about 75 feet (23 meters) but it was also a dive site with huge rocks under the water. There was a ton of coral and lots of little fish. The great thing about this dive was there are two places where a couple of the rocks form a tunnel and you can swim through it. They are only 10 or 15 feet long but it still feels like you are going into a cave.

I found a video on youtube for the school that I used.

Matee's Open Water course – Koh Tao

The last two days have been mind blowing. I always knew I would enjoy diving, but I had no idea how fantastic it would be. Yesterday I swam into a school of fish that was huge like 20 feet by 20 feet. Every way I looked all I saw was fish moving. Then today we dove at this place where there were all kinds of huge rocks ( about 30-50 feet high) covered by coral and there was a lot of fish around too. My teacher Neil Farmer for Phoenix Divers www.phoenix-divers.com for the class was so great…he is actually a course teacher so he is certified to teach people to be dive instructors.

Last night we headed down to the south tip of the Island for dinner. Here is a pic of the view we had for dinner…I have been pretty busy with diving so there is not a whole lot more to write about at this point.

After just my first day of class I am loving it. We just did a lot of pool work today. I learned what to do if my masks gets water in it or I drop my regulator…just basic stuff that you need to know. But either way I just from being in the pool I am loving it. I can’t wait for tomorrow!!

Tonight we ate dinner at another beach side restaurant while the sun was setting. I had the best Chicken Pad Thai for under two dollars…really…yeah thats right we both ate dinner for like 6 dollars…I am posting a couple pics of the view below.

I have been super busy. I was snorkeling all day yesterday then started my SSI certification right afterwards for my SCUBA certification. Then had to study last night to be ready for the class that I start in 5 minutes. I will get more updates on everything I am doing soon.

I didn’t get a chnace to do an update yesterday, but not much happened. I pretty much just layed around on the beach and in the room at Ark Bar www.ark-bar.com on Chaweng Beach in Koh Samui. Chaweng was ok, but it was a little too busy and commercialized for my taste.
Today I made it to Koh Tao. This Island is really my speed. We have a great little bungalow at a place called Blue Wind. I just got done sitting at this great little little beach bar called Fizz. They have a deck that is about 15 feet from the ocean with bean bag chairs around little tables, perfect mood lighting and great deep house music playing. I really can’t imagine I will ever find another place that fits  my personality better than Fizz. See the Pictures of Fizz below.

I am not sure if I will try and take my PADI open water certification or not. But I did a lot of research and figured I would pass on the info that I collected.

A board member (that was a instructor on Koh Tao for 2 years) from http://boards.bootsnall.com sent me the following advice:

As for shops…it is a really tough choice and there are several issues.

1) don’t try to go too budget, they will be cutting corners somewhere.

2) meet you instructor before you sign up.

3) try to be in a small group.

Number one is easy – if they are too desperate to get you into the shop or offer you a “deal” don’t go. Number two should be easy. If the school is too big, then you’ll not be able to meet your instructor as they just like a factory.

Number Three is the hardest one of them all.
So I would say, take a few names of schools that interest you. When you get to Koh Tao, get a ride to the school of your choice. Talk to them. Leave your bags there, and walk to a couple of other schools and see how you feel. Comfort and confidence in your instructor is VERY important.

I would suggest Scuba Junction. (I am very good friends with the manager/owner – so take it with a grain of salt). But The manager is VERY anal and strict about standards and I love that. Very well run, and I try to emulate many of his methods in our shop.

I also recommend Big Blue, but only certain instructors. It’s a much larger school and there are shining stars and not-so shining stars. Again, it’s a well run school so standards will be met. I also like the community atmosphere there. People often stay longer than they expect…

Here is a list of websites for diving schools:

http://www.phoenix-divers.com – This is where I did my open water and went back two years later to do my dive master with them. I obviously highly recommend them
http://www.planet-scuba.net
http://www.kohtaodivecenter.com
http://www.crystaldive.com
http://www.taatohdivers.com – highly recommended on boots board
http://www.kohtaobansdiving.com – looks to be the biggest outfit on the island
http://www.bigbubble.info
http://www.divepoint-kohtao.com – another very highly recomended school
http://www.scuba-junction.com – recomended by SimilanDiver on boots
http://www.bigbluediving.com – also recomended on boots as a very experienced teacher