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Little turtle island is awesome. Loved it. Like all other visitors i arrived on this island for the sole purpose of scuba. Lured here by the ever powerful and influential guide books selling the island as the mecca of scuba divers i booked a 5 day Padi course & totally enjoyed it loved it, met some great people and was really knocked for six at how amazing it is down there. There was alittle bit of fear and apprehension with the thought of your life being in the hands of a tiny (but f*cking heavy) steel tank strapped to your back but like anything involving fear the rewards afterswards and the adrenaline are well worth it.
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Koh Tao gulf of Thailand

Leebee
2006-01-06 16:23:08

Displayed times (last time: ) Rating 5/5

Rating: 5.00 out of 5.00. 1 members have rated this article

Little turtle island is awesome. Loved it. Like all other visitors i arrived on this island for the sole purpose of scuba. Lured here by the ever powerful and influential guide books selling the island as the mecca of scuba divers i booked a 5 day Padi course & totally enjoyed it loved it, met some great people and was really knocked for six at how amazing it is down there. There was alittle bit of fear and apprehension with the thought of your life being in the hands of a tiny (but f*cking heavy) steel tank strapped to your back but like anything involving fear the rewards afterswards and the adrenaline are well worth it.

I have to admit that the thought of sharks were constantly on my mind whilst we were in class. I did'nt know what we would do at such a depth if one of them decided to attack, we learned the hand signals for i am ok, i am not ok and i am going to the surface, but what worried me was that we were not taught a universal hand signal for a bloody big shark is on your tail, having said that i suppose the brown liquid venting itself from my wetsuit would have been enough.

We were extremely lucky on our course, we had perfect conditions of 30m + visibility and frequent visits from turtles, clown fish, barcudas and even a couple of huuuge 18ft Whale sharks, sharks of the vegetarian variety, meaning no sharp teeth and appetite for human blood.

To put it into context our instructors had done around 400 - 600 dives in their lives and this was also the first time they were seeing a whale sharkl!! there are that rare!!. What a strange weird and wonderful experience it was for us to be floating steadily at around 15m depth & for us to then witness such a magnificent huge creature come gliding out of the deep blue hazyness towards us silhouetted (and looking rather like a great white) & then to hit the light and reveal itself & all its intricate patterns on its skin (skin? is it skin?), and have its little inky beady eyes make contact with yours!!, even at those surreal moments, i remember trying to take it all in as much as possible with wide open glaring eyes telling myself this was a once in a lifetime moment. I could only make a daft noise like you hear in jaws, hmmmmmmmm hmmmmmmmm hmmmmm

I really loved Ko Tao, after the diving we all had a party next to the beach at the bar and all the dive talk about who had seen what over cocktails and beers made it a great time for me, much better than the full moon party.