In 1986, when the world was sill young, we got certified as open water scuba divers by the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI for short). Not long after we got certified we dove (among other places) in the Florida keys, The Turks and Caicos, on Bonaire and eventually on the Great Barrier Reef of Australia.
But then we got busy and our attention got taken up by other things like playing music or running a little neighborhood bar and we just didn’t get back around to doing any diving. More than 20 years slipped by without us strapping on a scuba tank.
Since we are in the Islands of Thailand for almost two months it seemed like to perfect opportunity to try it again.
Recognizing that it has been many moons since we were trained, and while a lot of it is like riding a bicycle (you remember again as soon as you jump on), there are a lot of important details that we knew we had forgotten. So, “being charitable and cautious” we decided to take a refresher course before we headed back out into the deep.
There are a LOT of dive operations in Koh Samui, when we sat down to research them. What we found, in one recommendation after another, is that one outfit stood out among the rest. It is called 100 Degrees East
Since it was not far away, Bonnie and I jumped on the scooter and visited with the folks at 100 Degrees East at their dive shop and were quite impressed. We signed up for our refresher course and also for a day of diving on Koh Tao.
The story would not be complete if we did not talk a little but about pricing for dive trips. You can go cheap for long full day trip on packed older boat (around 40 people) where the ratio of guest to staff is about 10 to 1. As you can imagine there is little personalized service with this option. You bring your own beach towels, pay extra for soft drinks and the included lunch is quite limited. As an example, snorkeling gear with many of these operators include mask and snorkel but not fins.
Or you can pay about twice as much and go on a new boat with a typical limit of 12 guest. Everything is included and the guest to staff ratio is 4 to 1. Your fee includes pickup and drop off from your hotel, boat trip, full gear, water, fresh fruit, fluffy towels, a nice lunch and an amazingly attentive crew. This would be the 100 Degrees East trip. We saw “the other guys” while we out diving and were very thankful we had chosen to go the more pampered route.
On the day of our refresher we arrived at the dive shop to meet our instructor, a master diver named Kurt from New Zealand. We spent the first 45 minutes doing paperwork and then talking through how the refresher was going to work. We also reviewed all of the classroom stuff we learned so many years ago.
From there it was off to the pool, where we assembled our gear, did our buddy checks and demonstrated most of the basic dive skills. We were a bit rusty, but it all came back. We also spent quite a bit of time just swimming around the pool, getting re-acclimated, reviewing hand signals and working on neutral buoyancy.
We were back at our hotel in time for a late lunch and an amazing tasty Leo beer – the air in the tanks have no humidity and tends to make your throat quite dry, which makes that first cold beer taste awesome!
The next morning our driver was waiting for us in the parking lot of our hotel with a big smile on his face. He drove us to the scuba shop where we had one of the most complete dive briefings ever. Every little detail of the trip was covered. That would typically be the time that any other dive shop would have had you assemble your gear and carry it and the extra tank down to the boat, but not at 100 Degrees East – our gear was all set up and waiting for us on the boat. They even remembered to swap out Bonnie’s regulator mouthpiece to a kids size to make it more comfortable for her.
There were about a dozen guests on the boat which could have easily held twice that many. We dropped our flip flops in a dry box and climbed onboard a fresh clean new boat with cold water, soft drinks and even a marine toilet. From there it was about an hours ride out to the dive sites.
Kurt, our instructor from the day before was there with us and ended up being our private guide for our dives. What luxury to have someone with you who knew all the best spots. Gear on with lots of help from the boat crew, buddy checks done and then it was into the ocean, which was a balmy 27 degrees C. (about 80 degrees F).
While the water was delightfully warm, and most of the coral was alive and vibrant, it was a bit cloudy from a recent algae bloom, so visibility did not compare to what we remembered from dives in the Bahamas. However, the number, types of fish, marine life and coral was amazing.
As soon as we came back on board the boat the crew took our gear for us and set it up for the next dive. Meanwhile we were immediately offered cold water and fresh watermelon.
In between dives we had a freshwater shower, toweled off and headed over the the amazing beautiful Mango Bay. It is easy to see what so many movies are filmed in this part of the world. Lunch was served on the boat: white rice, massaman curry, fried chicken, egg rolls and soft drinks. It was delicious.
Our second dive was clearer that the first, and we had a great time with almost an hour of downtime on relatively shallow (20 to 30 feet) reefs. Schools of fish, rays, and lovely live coral beds.
On the boat ride back we were treated to a pod of pink dolphins, a rarity in the Islands of Thailand, the crew redirected and then stopped the boat so we could watch these lovely creatures breach and play.
Two thumbs up for the pampered service we got from Kurt and the team at 100 Degrees East. Hopefully we will be back out with them for another dive before we leave Koh Samui.