Diving at Koh Tao

Sunday, April 5, 2009 9:00am

We’re on the ferry that will take us to the dive boat at Koh Tao. Passengers include an assortment of farangs (Caucasians), Chinese and other tourists. There are a good number of men in Muslim dress with their women in full chador. Thailand borders on Malaysia at the tip of its southern peninsula. This is a Muslim region but we are not really close to it. I can’t imagine how they can be comfortable in this tropical heat wearing such clothing. The ferry is making way at a good clip and the breeze provides welcome relief. I’m watching a Thai woman provide a foot massage to a farang lady. She is well supplied with a box of gels and creams and is working with vigorous hands up to the woman’s shins. This has to be the mother of all foot massages. My camcorder is not working, probably because of the heat and humidity. This is all the more reason then for me to turn to pen and paper.

I don’t see any farangs on this boat who look like sex tourists. This is the first time I’ve noted their absence since we arrived in Thailand. They stick out like a sore thumb. Middle aged balding white guys, alone or with very young Thai women too young to be their daughters. As a balding middle aged white guy I’m particularly uncomfortable with the whole scene. And Bryan keeps pointing out that I’m dressed like a lot of them with my very loud but comfortable Hawaiian shirt. I want to grab these guys and shout how pathetic they look, even if the Thais don’t give them a single look. “Why can’t you just find a brothel instead of pretending that that 17 year old girl with you thinks that you’re a hottie”?

Sunday, April 5, 2009 2:30pm

We have completed two of the five dives we’ve been promised for this trip. We are on the dive boat anchored close off the coast of Koh Tao. These dives at about 14 metres down are the deepest I’ve been since I earned my diving certification in New Zealand last month. The visibility in the water here is about 10 metres and not as good as the diving is reputed to be for those resorts, like Phuket and Krabi, on the Andaman Sea or Indian Ocean side of the peninsula. Still, this is a major improvement over the murky and very cold waters near Wellington. And magnificent sea life abounds here with all manners of coral reef, anemones and colourful fish. I heard a great deal before I left for Bangkok of the magnificent whale sharks that can be found in these waters. These sharks which can reach 12 metres in length are the largest fish in the world. Dominic our dive master tells us that they are here only occasionally. And like sharks all over their numbers are being decimated by the Chinese appetite for shark fin soup. We also didn’t see any triggerfish or sea snakes on these dives. Just as well I suppose since the former are extremely venomous and the latter, while not poisonous, are very aggressive and territorial and have been know to snap their very sharp little teeth at divers’ fins and appendages.

We are going to be sleeping on the cushions on the top deck of this boat. It’s a pretty Spartan accommodation. Earlier on board there were five other day trip divers, all Germans, who have just left for hotels and resorts on Koh Tao. When German men obtain their passports they must be given a supply of woefully undersized bathing togs. I’m talking Borat and his “mankini”. And these guys are not exactly svelte and buff with their beer guts. Inflicting this sight on the rest of us tourists must be revenge for losing WWII.

5:00pm
We’ve just finished the 3rd and for me, the final dive of the day. Bryan may go for the night dive with Dominic but I’m through with this until tomorrow when we will do the final two dives for this trip. He has promised something special for those dives. I’m sitting now on the top deck of the boat looking out as the sun begins to set on the Gulf of Siam. It’s not quite a perfect sky with the ominous rain clouds off to the west and north. All but a few of the dive boats have departed with their day trip passengers and I’m enjoying the quiet. The long tail boats of the fisherman with their long propeller shafts barely extended into the water were particularly noisy. I can hear a radio below deck playing Thai pop music from the quarters of the boat’s captain and his wife. Earlier she had cooked us a delicious dinner of chicken, pork and coconut rice. We are now anchored very close to the shore but hopefully far away enough to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Despite the heavy cloud cover the sunset is turning into quite a show of brilliant red and orange with an almost nuclear intensity. My appetite is stirring again after a day of diving and I’m thinking of coconut rice.