Again, why are we up so early?
Oh yeah, DIVING! There are very few sports ill sacrifice my slumber for, but, as much as I don’t like boats, diving is awesome!
We had been booked onto another companies boat this morning as the mojo ship was going to a place called Sail Rock. It’s halfway between Koh Pangan and Koh Tao and is just a random pinnacle of rock sticking out of the ocean. In rough seas, I can imagine this being a ship wrecker because it’s just in the middle of nowhere. We had the option to go diving there, however the additional cost and my potential seasickness in open waters dissuaded us. There is a lot more fish life to see there but we had seen loads of fish by now. We opted for the deep dive and wreck dive instead.
The deep dive was cool. Not much different to our previous maximum depth of 18m, now we went down to 30m. There was some cool plant life and fishes at Chumpon but now we are able to explore the whole rocky site. At one point we were swooping along a valley and then the floor disappeared and we dived over the edge. I got a sort of vertigo moment and then realised I had this extra power underwater to control my altitude – so cool!
A short chug away was the wreck: HTMS Sattakut. This was involved in the 2nd World War and was gifted to Thailand by the Americans. It was sunk on purpose as a dive site just off the coast of Koh Tao and is ABSOLUTELY AWESOME!!
We submerged and followed a buoy line into the murky water. Mysteriously, we were faced with the front of a massive war ship, fading into existence. It was like the beginning of a dream, just sort of appearing, without any introduction as you slip into unconsciousness. Directly in front of us was a big gun on the bow of the ship. I don’t know much about guns so let me know what it was was to earn points. We swung around this and floated along the deck of the craft, like motes of dust in the library of a time gone by. The glow of light didn’t cast any shadows, just softly fading between visible and invisible shapes. It was really spooky. This wreck was sunk on purpose but there must be thousands of ships in the big blue that still have all their commercial and human cargo aboard. They are all just sitting silently on the bottom, giant irrecoverable tombstones of tragic nautical events. I don’t like blood, guts and gore. Movies like that just don’t appeal to me, but I found myself oddly fascinated by this wreck. I really want to do another and generally more diving when back in the UK. And now I’m qualified as an advance adventure diver down to 30m it opens up a load more sites to explore.
We got back to the apartment and slept for about 3 hours. The cumulative effects of late nights, early mornings and exciting diving having taken its toll. Having packed a whole day’s activity into the morning, and slept, I felt like we had changed a time zone and gained another day. This afternoon-day was just about eating, reading and wandering around town. We spent a few hours chilling in a coffee shop (with air conditioning) and here met with Kari and Ted. They are digital nomads hoping to permanently travel by only doing web based work. It was really cool meeting them and finding out about their travels and business plans. It’s inspired us to find something that will create this lifestyle for us. We had a few ideas but, needs some work.
We went to dinner at our favourite thai place and then to TITs bar (turtle island tavern) for some drinks and a game of pool. We won the table from an English chap, had a game of killer before Kari and Ted called it a night.
We had had a midday siesta so we walked along the beach and watched the fire twirlers. These thai guys are really skilled with fire poi and fire… sticks, batons? It was fun but they are out every night so we just started dancing to the music instead. A couple of chilean girls got involved and Phil ended up giving us all a dance lesson on the beach. It was great fun!