Scuba diving and Chalok Bay.

The diving school we chose for Boyfriend's Open Water course and my fun dives was Scuba Junction, which turned out to be a stellar choice. The instructors were top quality, the safety top priority, but still the atmosphere was relaxed and friendly. In addition to usual equipment, training and discounted accommodation, they also provided diving insurance (one of the very few dive schools who do that), free internet and help in finding our next accommodation and even a free ride there! I warmly recommend Scuba Junction to anyone planning to dive at Koh Tao!

Boyfriend had very hectic four days learning all the theory and scuba skills, but I feel he was taught a lot more than I was last year at Phoenix. I did a quick refresher course to update my skills, and I felt much more comfortable with my dive master than I ever previously did. She did perfect job briefing the dive site as well as the fish and corals that we'd encounter underwater. Last year I had no idea what we'd seen!

As Boyfriend was the only person on his course (!), I got to dive as his buddy on his final two dives. First of those was at Southwest Pinnacle, a fair distance away from the calm waters near Koh Tao. There we saw huge schools of large barracuda, maybe thousands of them, circling around the pinnacle and around us. Amazing! The pinnacle was covered in sea anemones, which I've always found very pretty and unworldly. On the second dive we were at Twins, and somehow it was full of life (unlike a couple of days earlier) with lots of exotic marine animals, including a huge titan triggerfish swimming between us (they bite, but luckily not us!), blue-spotted stingray, white-eyed moray eels, butterflyfish, batfish, angelfish, etc etc. Boyfriend dove really well and I'm really looking forward to future dives with him.

To recover from all the diving we've retreated to other side of Koh Tao. We've been spending time in the beach cafes of Chalok Bay and are going snorkelling on Shark Bay later today. It's been very lazy, lots of reading, but also a lot of walking from place to place. The atmosphere on this side is much more relaxed and less party-oriented than on Sairee Beach. The Full Moon Party on Koh Phagnan was about a week ago now, and the party-goers from there seemed to hit Sairee on full force, whereas on this side there hasn't been any sightings of the neon-coloured tops declaring FMP attendance. This side also has a couple of posher resort, so it also brings a quieter nature to it. Our bungalow is once again right by the sea, but this time the shore is rocky and we fall asleep to the sound of waves splashing against the rocks. And we can spot palm-sized crabs hiding in the cracks of the rocks after dark.