So the main attraction of Koh Tao for me was the abundance of PADI courses on offer. Koh Tao is home to stunning marine life and is one of the cheapest places in the world to acquire your PADI Open Water Qualification. Consequently they are second only to Cairns in the number of Open Water Certifications issued each year. Whilst some would warn travellers about the quality of teaching in a fast-track course, I certainly vouch for my course with Easy Divers as excellently led and a great experience.
In choosing a course there’s plenty on offer on the island. A look at online reviews and prices showed fairly similar results all round too. I ended up booking with Easy Divers for a couple of reasons: firstly they had a deal including accommodation for the duration of the course, secondly their practice sessions take place in the ocean rather than a pool which I (correctly) thought would be better for my all round experience.
On day 1 we arrived around 4pm to begin the course. The PADI open water is mainly delivered by instructional DVDs and manual, with your Dive Instructor on hand to answer any questions or help explain anything that wasn’t clear. I wouldn’t say any element of the course is particularly taxing or hard to understand though – everything revolves around being safe. The course is there to equip you with the knowledge to dive safely and know what to do should something unexpected happen. Small quizzes happen throughout the modules to check you have understood and after a couple of those you are ready to get wet.
As I mentioned before, we did our underwater practice in the sea rather than a pool. Koh Tao is lucky to have a tiny, super-sheltered, twin peaked island known commonly as ‘Twins’ (or properly known as Koh Nang Yuan). We did our underwater exercises in the sandy bay there – taking off masks and putting them back on underwater etc. and got to have a bonus quick dive to practice maintaining buoyancy (the key to smooth diving).
I had a stroke of bad/good luck on the final day. Due to an unexpected event I was unable to make the boat to do my final 2 qualifying dives. I had more time to finish the course and wasn’t too fussed but Easy Divers were extremely apologetic (despite it not really being their fault) and offered me a couple of extra fun dives to make up for the inconvenience. It’s not until you face a problem that you really see how professionally a company is run and I must say I was very impressed with the way Tom the manager helped me out. When I finished my diving the next day we looked at the fun-dive sites coming up and one was a deep site – a quick word in a few ears and I was able to secure a PADI 30m deep adventure dive at a discount rate which would enable me to dive deeper later on in my travels. This ended up being one of the best decisions I made on the whole trip.
I went out for my final dives full of excitement: the site we were visiting had reported 3 whale shark sightings in the past 10 days! To see the biggest fish in the world within my first few days of diving would have been incredible. Unfortunately I wasn’t quite that lucky, but diving at the Chumphon Pinnacle was still quite incredible, especially at the top of the pinnacle where there was a huge anemone garden. The following dive at Green Rock offered me a first sighting of a sea snake (and one in full swimming mode too – which is quite rare) so the morning was still pretty kick-ass and the whale shark remains on my ‘must-see’ list!
Overall I want to extend my thanks and recommendation to Easy Divers who were amazing and got me absolutely hooked on Scuba for life!