There’s a mosque on the island and they announce on the loud speaker when it’s time to pray. This disrupted our sleep in the middle of the nite. It was also our first nite in a fan room so it was warmer than what we were used to.
First day of dive course
Feb 14 – Valentine’s Day
We started our dive course 9am and lucky for us we just had to go downstairs from where we slept.
Coursework in the classroom in the morning followed by our confined dive in the afternoon.
For lunch that day I had eggs on toast. It was surprisingly ok. Although I miss whole wheat bread. Also had yogurt and muesli w/ fruit.
We found a new place to stay that day, it had a private bathroom but no wifi :/
It was also just a fan room.
That night was another terrible sleep or lack there of. People were lighting fireworks and being loud until 5am.
When we got up around 7:20a (dive at 7:45a) it was dead quiet. They had all gone to bed…
We only had a short walk back to the dive shop brought our backpacks w/ us again and hoped to find a new place to stay when we got back fr the dive in the afternoon.
Open Water Diving
The boat we took diving
For the first dive we went to Bida Nok, Phi Phi. We saw baby eels, a banded sea snake, Moray eels, scorpion fish, puffer fish, a yellow box fish, a lil Nemo (false clown fish), angel fish and peacock shrimp among others.
It was amazing!
Next, we had to do our swim test, twice around the boat and treading water, before lunch. It wasn’t too bad, and he let us keep our snorkels on.
I scarfed down my chicken baguette so I could prepare myself for the 2nd dive at Malong, Phi Phi.
This dive we saw a nudibranch slug (blue), devil and bearded scorpionfish, lion fish, moray eel, trigger fish, cornet fish and hawksbill turtles!
It was a fun day of diving and to make the day even better we found a bungalow to stay in away from town so much quieter.
We went back to the dive shop to do our quizzes and the exam that nite. We both did well and went back to the bungalow to rest.
First good nite’s rest since arriving in koh phi phi and boy did we need it. Diving was tiring and it felt good to finally be able to dream. LOL
Dive Day #2
The second day of diving we went to Bida Nai. We saw stick pike fish, they look exactly like sticks lol, flounders, more lil nemos, puffer fish and moray eels.
We stopped at Maya Bay for lunch, but no swim test this time. Just time to relax before the second dive of the day.
The highlights of the second dive (Palong, Phi Phi) of the day was the turtle eating the jellyfish and all the black tip reef sharks. They were scared of our bubbles so I had to remember to breathe slower when we saw them.
Yoni got some good video of the turtle vs. Jellyfish on his GoPro.
After the dives of the day we went back to the Dive shop and filled out the paperwork for our Open Water certification!! Now we can dive down to 18m!
That was a lot of work, and there were a couple hiccups along the way but seeing the underwater world was worth it.
Definitely looking forward to doing more diving in other countries like the Philippines where diving is supposed to be superb.
View of Maya Bay from the boat during lunch break
