Day 10 - Scuba scuba scuba

Our first morning in Koh Tao, we both woke up very well rested in our little Savage hostel room. The hostel provided four options as part of their complimentary breakfast - American (lots of meat, eggs, and a potato thing), healthy (granola, fruit, and toast), sweet (tres leches cake, a banana pancake and a brownie), and “international” which was a really weird assortment that we didn’t try once and I can’t remember what it included. A brownie sounded really good for breakfast, so we decided to split the sweet and American - such a balanced meal. 😂

After that, we headed to a local shop so Benji could buy a snorkel and mask. They actually did not sell them there, but rented them out for only 50 baht a day (less than 2 bucks). Benji happily accepted their offer and we were off to the beach with snorkel and mask in hand.

We spent most of the day taking turns snorkeling, lying on the beach, and reading. Benji would duck in and out of the beach bar to catch some shade and purchase a tropical beverage. Benji had gone snorkeling first and was disappointed with what he saw. When I decided to take a turn, I went further out than he did and found that there was a coral reef not too far offshore. I saw some cool fish and sea urchins within the coral - very cool! 

At around 3:30, we grabbed a quick late lunch and then headed to Phoenix Divers for our orientation. We met our dive master for the first time, a Thai man that went by the name “F”. Most of the first day was to go over the basics, and fill out the necessary paperwork. After that, we watched the first three of six instructional videos that we would need for our certification. The videos were incredibly informative, but also jam packed with information that it was hard to keep up! We tried taking notes at first, but eventually we tried to just absorb the information as best as possible. 

We got out of there around 7, and then went next door to the hostel/resort that is associated with Phoenix - AC Resort. We were told that they would be showing the diving video from that day, so we were excited to see what might be in store for us. The dive video was pretty cool and showcased the huge whale shark they saw that day! We crossed our fingers that we would also see a whale shark on our dives.

For dinner, we headed to a restaurant right by our hostel called Whitening. We thought it was kind of a strange name, potentially an homage to the white tourists that now frequent Koh Tao? Benji had fish and I had Penang Curry. The setting was lovely, right on the beach, unfortunately the seats weren’t very comfortable so we kept moving around (there were plenty of seats open). After we finished our dinner and drinks, we took another walk along the beach to see more fire dancing. We made it back to Lotus and lo and behold, the same exact dancers from the night before were there again. I guess it was their full time gig. We didn’t feel like spending any more money on drinks, so we meandered back down the beach. Unimpressed by any other beach bar’s fire dancers, we ended up just going home and to bed.