All posts tagged: padi

America the Inspirational: Dangers of Returning Home

I almost flaked on my Advanced Open Water diving course in Taganga at the last minute. I do that sometimes. I get scared of finishing things and run away. I had already done six breathtaking dives and to complete the course I had one requirement left: the 30-meter deep water dive. The night before the dreaded deed, I read the chapter on deep diving from the PADI booklet because I also do that. My homework, that is. PADI had elaborated on quite an extensive amount of possible things that could get me killed from this really unnecessary activity that is breathing under water with fish and other aquatic life. After all I had spent all my life not diving to 30 meters as a happy and thriving individual. I was scared. “Do I have to?” I asked my instructor in the morning. By looking at my face you would think that it’s not pretty coral but rotting fish that awaited me under 30 meters. Thankfully, Tomas glanced at the death page I was pointing at …

Pictures, Memories, and Lots of Fish: Diving in Koh Tao

Last October I completed a diving course with ScubaShack in Koh Tao, Thailand. The four-day course which was offered for a bargain price of 8,500 Baht certified me as a PADI licensed Open Water Diver and equipped me with a lovely little booklet in which to record the colorful fish I shall get to see in my future dives. The last day of the course was of course the highlight: two 18-meter dives in Chumphon Pinnacle and Hin Pee Wee. In anticipation of our first dive that morning, my friends Levent and Seda, and our instructor Claus boarded the dive boat at the unbearable hour of 05:45 am, thinking: “Why this Thai torture? Aren’t we on vacation?” ScubaShack is one of the earliest risers among tens of diving schools on the island famous for licensing the highest number of new divers. They torment their students with a 05:00 am wake-up call so that they may relish the wondrous magic of underwater Koh Tao, undisturbed by the hundreds of other divers who arrive at the very late hour …