January 2nd/3rd, 2018

02/01/2018: Yesterday, together with Sophie from Belgium, I started our Advanced Diving Course. In the morning, we had a theory lesson with Sven, where he told us all about deep diving, compass diving, and diving at night. We had to answer a questionnaire for each topic, which wasn't too difficult. 😅 Afterwards, we each received a compass and had to practice different patterns to learn how to use it. It was really fun! In the early afternoon, we were already on the boat. I was a bit nervous because diving in the sea is completely different from diving in a pool. But I was mainly excited for the dives. The first dive was to a wreck, where we did our deep dive. We went down to 26 meters and had to solve simple math problems to test our reactions. It was funny and we laughed a lot (as much as you can underwater) because thinking in the depths is really slower! 😅 Unfortunately, the underwater visibility was still poor due to heavy monsoon rain that occurred on Koh Tao until last week. But overall, I have been lucky with the weather, mostly sunny with temperatures between 27 and 30 degrees Celsius (the water temperature has been 27 degrees). Sven also said that the underwater visibility will improve every day.

The second dive was at 'White Rock'. On the way there, we saw a turtle from the boat and I was sooo happy about it! Turtles and small yellow 'boxfish' are my favorite sea creatures. The dive itself was also beautiful and the navigation went well. The visibility was slightly better and we could admire many corals and fish. Some rocks had small colorful plants that would retract when you wave water at them, and then slowly reappear. It's so crazy! There is so much to discover underwater!

After this dive, we went back to land where we noted our dives in our logbooks. In the logbook, we write down how long we were underwater, the water temperature, the maximum depth, and the fish we saw. We used a book with pictures to help identify the fish. These entries are not mandatory, but they are nice memories. The couple from Munich, with whom I did the review course the day before, were also on this dive. While Maya meticulously noted down all the fish species afterwards, Leo simply wrote in his logbook: 'Corals and fish.' 😂 It made me laugh so much when I saw that. Typical man!

Although Sophie and I were quite exhausted after these two dives, we still had a third one to do in the evening: the night dive. We were particularly nervous about this one. We couldn't imagine being able to see anything in the darkness. But first, we went out on the boat at sunset and it was beautiful again:

For the night dive, we each received a flashlight, and I will tell you right away what the highlight of the night dive was: a blue-spotted stingray swimming right beneath us. Absolutely stunning, I can tell you that! The dive was not as eerie as I expected. It won't become my favorite type of diving, but it was definitely exciting because different fish are active at night.

When we returned to land after 40 minutes of diving and another 20 minutes on the boat, we were very tired and just had a small meal before going to bed. For me, it was 'No Name Chicken'. Don't ask me why it's called that, but it was delicious and it looked like this:

03/01/2018: Today, we completed the last two required dives, but with a different instructor because Sven had to do a visa run and was not available. Visa run means he had to leave the country once and re-enter to get a 'fresh' visa. Instead, we were with Naz, a 31-year-old Thai who was also very nice and could tell us a lot about the Thai language. My name is written in Thai like this: 'แคโรลีน' - Cool, right?

'How are you?' is 'สบายดีมั้ย' (Sabai dee mai) and 'ขอบคุณค่ะ' (Khop khun ka) means 'Thank you'. I wish I could learn infinite languages, it's sooo interesting!

The dives today were the most beautiful so far. One dive was specialized in fish identification, and the other focused on our balance in the water. First, we went to 'Chumphon Pinnacle' and there were huuuuge schools of fish swimming around us. So so so beautiful and perfect for practicing fish identification! Even the relatively strong current didn't bother us. Different fish species have hand gestures that we had to learn on land because we can't speak underwater, so we communicate through hand signals. Underwater, Naz pointed at certain fish and we had to perform the correct hand gesture. The second dive for practicing balance went back to 'White Rock', where we had already dived the day before. And afterwards, Sophie and I officially became Advanced Open Water Divers!!! 😊😊😊

In the photo, you can see me with Gina (left), another diving student from Holland, Sophie (third from the left), and Naz (far right), our instructor:

We look sooo happy after diving! 😊 You should definitely try it if you haven't already!

Wow, that was a long blog entry today. I hope you still enjoyed it. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask anytime. 😊 But now I'm going to bed. Tomorrow is a diving-free day, and Sophie will move into my room for her last week here in Thailand, so we can save some money. 😅

Greetings from around the world!