Ryan Matthew in Thailand

not a whole lot going on at this point. I have just been relaxing the last few days for the most part. I am down to only needing to do a couple more things to finish up the divecon cert. So I will easily be done in time.

Well my laptop is dead…the back light in the monitor has been going for awhile now and it is finally just not working any more. On the plus side it did everything that I needed it to do while I was here and other than posting blogs I don’t really need it any more. So the blogs will probably be a bit more random from now on.

Back to what I have been up to. Yesterday I pretty much took the day off. I rode my bike around the island checking out some parts I had never been to before. Then in the afternoon I did end up going on a shore dive and practiced the stress tests that I need to do. Last night was steak night….so I had a wonderful steak for dinner.

This morning I got up and went on the morning dive. I did a deepish dive down to 30 meters at Chumphon. Then a second dive at red rock. Both we really nice dives. There were some huge groupers at Chumphon….by huge I mean like 4 to 5 feet long. We also saw some small tuna and the normal residence including Bat fish, Angel fish, and a school of little barracuda. At red rock my diving buddy Jana spotted a spanish dancer. I had never seen one before and they are really cool looking. It was small probably about 2 inches in diameter and they are very thin and float around on their skin that sort of looks like a ribbon. I found a video of one on youtube and posted it below. The one I saw looked a little different, but you can get the general idea from it.

I just finished doing my final lecture. I did 20 minutes on decompression sickness. Last night I did a 10 minute one on a BC. A BC is what you wear when your diving to help you with your buoyancy. Now that I am done with my lectures I will get back to diving and get the last few things that I need to do finished up. I am thinking that I should be able to finish the course in the next week. Not much else has been going on. I have pretty much just been in my bungalow preparing the lectures the last couple days. Well I am off to get something to eat and relax a little bit tonight.

I got a 95% on the Dive Master exam!!! Now the hardest thing I have left to do are the two lectures that I need to give. I am doing the first of them tomorrow that will be 10 minutes on a BCD (buoyancy compensation device). I have just under two weeks left and I am feeling really good about being able to get everything done in time.

I went to fizz tonight for the first time on this trip which is a little surprising seeing it was my favorite place on Koh Tao when I was here two years ago. I have to admit I was a little disappointed. The music was not nearly as good as it was two years ago. Two years ago they played super good deep sexy house music. Tonight they were just playing some sort of a mish-mash chilled out lounge type music. It was much better than what most of the places play around here, but it was not top quality like it was a couple years ago. I never really ate a proper meal there last time I was here, but it was only mediocre at best tonight. I get better pad thai in Pittsburgh!! I think I will give it one more try to see if they were just having an off night on music, but I don’t think they get a second chance on food.

I slept in a little bit this morning. I headed down to the school to grab breakfast from the AC restaurant with plans to go back to my bungalow and study all day in preparation to take the exam this afternoon. I was sitting at the school eating and Neil (my instructor) asked me to do my skill circuit with his new open water class. I needed to do a skill circuit above and below water for my certification so I put off studying for the day. I had to demonstrate all the skills in the class room and then again underwater. The skills include things like how to clear the regulator, regulator retrieval, clearing water out of your mask, and a few other things. In between the class room session and the confined water session I was able to finish up my Emergency Management Plan. It is a document I had to create with the procedures to follow if something bad happens on the boat. So while I didn’t get any studying done I was able to get three things that I needed to get done for my certification done. I had a good start on the dive site map that I need to do, but I didn’t save the document and someone borrowed my laptop to use while I was doing the confined water session and they shut down the computer. So I will need to start that over again. I fortunately had not been working on it for that long…so it is not that big of a loss.

I just got done eating my dinner and that was pork stir fried in garlic and pepper. I love thai food…I think I will miss the food as much or more than I will miss anything else here. I am going to head back to my bungalow and watch a movie then go to sleep.

I didn’t dive today so I spent the day studying for the exam. I am going to do a bit more studying tonight and tomorrow morning and I should be ready to take the exam tomorrow. Other than that not a whole lot went on today. Even though I was busy most of the day reading, it was a really nice change of pace from diving everyday. I am thinking that I am going to take at least one more day off and probably two. I have a good amount of stuff to do out of the water and I want to get a lot of it done soon. I am realizing that I am down to just over 2 weeks left until I need to leave and I don’t want to have a whole bunch of stuff to try and cram into my last week here.

I have been diving straight for at least a week or two and its starting to catch up with me a little bit. So I am taking a day or two off from diving to catch up on some much needed rest. I will use my time to work on some the requirements that don’t involve diving in my DiveCon course.

Today I went out on the morning boat and helped out with the open water class’s final 2 dives. This afternoon I took a nap and studied for the course exam. This evening I came to the movie for the open water class. Now I am about to head off for steak night. It is supposed to be on Tuesday, but for some reason didn’t happen last night.

I slept in this morning a little bit. Then I got up and did the homework that I should have done last night. Last night I was super tired so opted to watch a movie instead of doing homework. But it got done in the end so it worked out ok.

I went out on the afternoon boat today. My plan was to help out with the open water class that started yesterday. But I ended up assisting a discover scuba diving session instead. Basically it is a dive for people that don’t want to spend the time getting certified, but still want to scuba dive. Usually it is pretty tough because the people know absolutely nothing about diving so you end up in an extreme babysitting dive. Today it ended up that the people had done it a few times before and were actually better divers than most of our open water students. I need to do one more discover scuba diving session for my dive con certification. I hope the next one goes as smoothly.

After we got back from the dive there was a classroom session on diving physics. One of the instructors at the school did it for all of the dive master trainees to help out with some of the tougher stuff that we need to know for the exam that we all need to take. Now I am off to get something to eat and head to bed. I am back out on a morning dive again tomorrow.

Got up early again for the morning boat. Went back to Chumphon this morning in hopes of seeing a whale shark again. No whale shark this morning, but it was a really nice dive either way. On the second dive we went to Japanese gardens and I worked on making a map of the little wreck that is at the dive site.

Got back from the morning dive and had about a half hour to relax before getting ready for the afternoon boat. On the afternoon boat I helped out with doing the confined dive for a new open water class. After a full day of diving I am super tired. I am going to get a bite to eat then head home to do some homework that I need to have done for tomorrow.

Yesterday was a jammed packed day that ended with no internet. I got up at 6 am yesterday to get on the morning boat. We were heading to a dive site south of the island when it came over the radio that a whale shark had been spotted at the dive site north of the island. The captain turned around and we headed there. As soon as we jumped in we saw the whale shark!!! It was a juvenile so it was about 18 feet long maybe a little bit bigger. It was absolutely amazing!! After the 2 morning dives I headed out on the afternoon boat planning to assist with a class. Just before the boat left I found out that I was leading 3 people on a dive. I was a bit nervous as it was my first time leading paying customers on a dive, but it went well and we all had fun. After 4 dives and an insane amount of sun I was really tired last night.

This morning I was back up at 6 am again in hopes of seeing the whale shark again. I ended up leading the same 3 divers from yesterday on 2 more dives. We went to the southern dive site that was planned for yesterday. I was completely exhausted after diving this morning and went home for a nice afternoon nap.

Turns out the whale shark was at the northern site again this morning. With any luck it will be there again tomorrow morning!!