LEARNING TO SCUBA DIVE – KHOA TAO, THAILAND

Scuba diving has always been on my bucket list even though I never truly had any overzealous expectations of it. I suppose this was a result of knowing many people who have done it and seeming to think that all their stories melded in to one, very common experience. Even so, I did remain curious and was eager to give it a chance. While growing up, my father was always insistent that we try everything at least once. He would remind us that we had nothing to lose and everything to gain, no matter the result. It was a doctrine that I grew to arduously live by and it continues to play a defining role in the guiding principles of my life.  

I was pleasantly surprised when I took to diving as passionately as I did. My instructor loved my beginner’s enthusiasm; every time I surfaced and took the regulator out of my mouth, I’d holler with excitement, asking everyone if they saw the enormous jellyfish or the circling school of barracudas. It took about four dives before I was completely hooked. At this point, diving had infiltrated my dreams and I’d wake up with a striking remembrance of swimming with turtles or maneuvering through systems of caves and crevices. Koh Tao had an addictive vibe itself, being a laid back island that mainly attracted divers and tourists looking for a cheery but reflective atmosphere. It was a bittersweet moment when I had completed my beginner’s course and started packing for my next jaunt in Ko Pangnan. I had become so infatuated with being and breathing underwater that I changed my travel plans to go back to Koh Tao to get my advanced certification.

I returned four days later, with a newly found taste for diving still vivid and fresh in my memory. When I found my instructor sitting at the bar in the diving school, he chuckled at my reappearance as if to say, “I knew you’d be back”. We immediately planned the advanced dives I would complete for the certification, which included extremely exhilarating buoyancy and night dives. Fueled by my growing fervor for my new hobby, I even managed to finish the entire lesson book that night over a heaping serving of pad thai. As I finished the last chapter and pushed the empty plate away, I looked around and realized I was in the midst of like-minded people who shared the same addiction for breathing underwater. I gave it a chance and found a passion for diving that flourished quite intensely and unexpectedly. It swept me off my feet and in to the colourful depths of the waters surrounding an island that will forever remain the setting for which I found a new, undying love.