Shark Diving on Christmas Eve
It is now safe to say that I will soon have a job here on the island of Koh Tao where I have been for about a month now. I’m now staying in a simple fan-cooled room in a quiet spot away from the beach. Its spacious with a big double bed, hot water, a fridge and a TV. I swim in the ocean everyday and watch the sunset on the beach every night. Life is good.
On the last two dives of my open water course we were accompanied by a videographer who filmed us as we finished our course. As I watched her work, I thought to myself: “that seems like it would be a cool job…” and I made a note to ask her how she got into it. Later that day we gathered at Big Blue’s bar to watch our video and after it was over I talked to her a bit and found out that she had gone through a course with Ace Marine Images on the island and then stayed to do an internship with them and ending up working for them full time. I read up on the course and it sounded quite good. I stayed on at Big Blue to do my advanced certification and as I did that I went in and talked to the people at Ace about doing the video course. It was on the expensive side, but I had a good feeling and splurged on it. It consisted of an on land photography course and 8 dives with a camera and housing. As this went on I moved from Big Blue to the place I am now and spent time hanging out with the German friends I made from my open water named Chris and Tina. We rented scooters and accidentally took the back way to one of the other beaches. The dirt roads where in terrible shape and it was my first time riding a scooter, but we pressed on anyway. That was one way to learn I guess. The scooters were returned miraculously unscathed after our off-road adventures. Having learned our lesson, the next time we decided to go across the mountainous interior of the island we rented ATVs, which I have a bit more experience with. We hit almost every beach on the opposite, much less developed, side of the island via these primitive dirt roads. We even had to turn around once when we found a section so steep and sandy that I could tell our 4-wheelers wouldn’t be able to bring us back up if we went down. We also found an incredible view looking out across the island on top of a rock accessed by a makeshift bamboo ladder. After a few days hanging out with them and others we met, they left for Bangkok on their way back to Germany.
Shooting video underwater was admittedly harder than I expected, but over the dives I got better at it and when I finished they invited me to stay on for the internship. After much thought I decided that I would like to stick around for a while and give it a shot, so I did. The past week or so I have been out diving with the other videographers at different dive shops to get a feel for the job, what to shoot, when to shoot, when to get set up etc. The guys at Ace were really great and lent me dive gear when I needed it. Eventually I got my own setup for relatively cheap.
Around lunch time on the 19th I looked at the stamp in my passport and realized I was supposed to be out of the country that very day. Most every foreigner in Thailand has to do “Visa Runs” which means leaving the country and coming back in to get a new stamp and hence, more time. I frantically called Heather from Ace wondering how I was going to make it off the island that day, much less out of the country. She directed me to a travel office where I sorted out one of these visa runs. I wasn’t going to make it out that day, but my boat to the mainland left at 10am the next morning and I was on it. Fun fact: This was also the first day I had worn socks in about two weeks. It was a nice, fast, air conditioned boat and I arrived in Chumpon around 12:30pm. The boat pulled in slowly passing lines of fishing boats and ports on either side along the way. Once I left the boat I was greeted by the bus driver holding a sign that said “visa run.” Myself and 6 others who were doing the same thing, piled into the van and started on our way to Burma. We dropped everyone off at the Thai port for a place called the “Andaman Club” across the way in Myanmar, but because I had overstayed by one day I had to pay a fine in a different place across town. The van took me to the right place and they made copies of my passport while I filled out a police report about overstaying and payed my 500Baht fine. Lesson learned. I got back to the port just after 4pm and the bus back to Chumpon was leaving at 5pm. I had less than an our to get my paperwork through, get across the bay, get stamped and get back in time. I was in Burma, literally, for 5 minutes and I made it back right on time. The bus dropped me and the other 2 who where taking the night boat back to Koh Tao off at a cafe while we waited for a taxi (pick up truck) to the boat a few hours later. I had dinner and used the internet to kill the time. I had heard stories of how uncomfortable this particular night ferry was and I have no trouble admitting that I downed a few beers to help soften the blow and get some sleep. And it turned out to be the best decision I made all week. Once the pick up arrived me and the two British girls hopped in the back a got to chatting. The truck stopped and picked up two South Africans and we met two Australians when we arrived at the port. We all gathered around and cracked jokes about the boat we were about to get on. The 7 of us were the only foreigners on this boat and when we boarded we found out why. It was easily the oldest vessel I’ve been on and our place to sleep consisted of thin mattresses laid out on the floor and the shelf just above it, like two huge uninterrupted bunkbeds with a good number of locals already sleeping. I snatched an open place on the floor along with the two Brits. Maybe it was my sense of adventure or maybe it was just the alcohol, but I was actually pretty comfortable with the situation. The boat was loud, but the seas were calm and I slept surprisingly well throughout the night after watching us sail away under a full moon. The boat pulled in around 5:30 in the AM and I bid the others goodbye as I hopped on my scooter and zipped back to my room to catch a few more hours of sleep.
I ended up feeling good enough to dive that afternoon, so I went out and did more following. We went to a site I hadn’t been to yet that had caves you could swim through which was quite an awesome experience, made even more interesting by my fogging mask which I had to keep clearing in the cramped space. Yesterday morning I woke up early and went out to a beach called Shark Bay do some snorkeling.
Today is Christmas Eve and I got up around 5:30am to follow Heather out on a couple of dives, but this time with a camera back in my hands. The first site was a place called Chumphon Pinnacle which I have dived many times before, but the conditions there were the best I’ve seen yet. 30 meters down you could still see light at the surface. Also 30 meters down is where the sharks tend to be. Nothing wakes you up in the morning quite like turning around and find yourself face to face with a Reef Shark not much smaller than yourself. Not to mention the Great Barracuda that also patrol the area. It was an incredible dive and I got some good footage. The next dive was also quite good, but less eventful. Did I mention everyone was diving in Santa Hats?
Its hard to believe Christmas has already come so quickly and being in a country that doesn’t ‘officially’ celebrate it is interesting… and refreshing. There are no lines backed out of superstores, no extra traffic, no holiday hordes wrapped up in the consuming frenzy that Christmas has become. There is only celebration. My Christmas day will consist of a BBQ on the beach, swimming and laying in the sun. It should be an interesting change from the cold I’m used to. More later
-Tyler