Rewind:

Everyday I set my alarm for 7:00am and every day I wake up exactly 32 minutes earlier. This morning was no difference, the only difference in waking up today was the fact that it was my day off from working and I had my first course at New Way to get my PADI open water dive certification. I woke up nervous and excited for this new adventure. Mike made us a bacon, onions, and potatoes scram and toasted up some bread we got from the bakery. As we sat outside eating our breakfast together, all we talked about was diving.

Something about what Mike had just said really stuck with me all day

After we ate we cleaned up, and headed up to the dive shop for my class. Since Mike is a Dive Master Trainee (DMT) at the shop, one thing he does is sit in on courses, to see how they’re taught. Which is also awesome that today I got a glimpse of what he does every day while I’m at my job. For the first few hours this morning we did book work and knowledge reviews. We finished around 10:30am and had 2 hours to kill before it was time to get on the boat. We went to a little restaurant and ordered a coconut shake, large water, Singha(which we didn’t really order, but the brought it out and Mike drank anyway), calamari, fried noodles with chicken and cashew chicken stir fry. After finishing lunch and paying our 480 baht bill ($14 USD) we had more time to kill so we walked around the stores in Sairee.



When we got back to the dive shop, we loaded on to the bed of the truck and were off to the pier.

The 2 Chinese girls, Canadian man, German man, and I learned more open water skills as other people in different classes worked with their instructors and jumped in the water. It was pretty shitty weather for my first dive, but it was still fun.

When I first jumped in the water I was uncomfortable breathing with the regulator but apparently that’s natural. The 7 of us (5 students, our instructor, and Mike our trainee) swam over to the shoreline where we could stand to practice some skills. It was comforting having Mike there. He said I did a kick ass job under water, and was exactly what you’d expect as a new student dating a dive master. (Although he may be a little biased)

Being under water for the 25 minutes was really mind blowing to me. We didn’t really see much because we were working on skills but it was insane to me that I just spent 25 minutes of my life under the water and here I am now, alive and breathing.

When I went skydiving before I came here with my friends, I freaked out. My friend Moe told me how she’s always wanted to fly, and that skydiving was the closest thing to get her there, so she was excited to finally be able to fly.

I thought of what she said as I was on my dive. Under water I felt like I was flying, I reminded my self not to be fearful or nervous and that “this is now, this is happening” I needed to live in the moment, take in my surroundings and really appreciate what I was doing.

It was awesome. I understand why Mike wants to make a living out of it, and I haven’t even gotten to see all of the beauties in which he marvels about.

When we got back to the boat, it was really stormy. The wind picked up and the waves approached the boat head on. The Dramamine that I precautionary consumed thinking would save me from moments like this really bit me in the ass. I was so sea sick. I felt shit faced. The whole boat ride home I laid on top of the boat, trying not vomit, so dizzy and very unhappy. 

I laid up there listening to all the different stories everyone had to share with each other about where they’re from, what its like back at home and how they ended up on this boat today. I wanted to contribute and ask more questions but I was struggling alone with raising my head high enough to brush the sea salted curls off my forehead. When we got off the boat, we went back to the shop, learned how to clean our equipment and we were done for the day. Mike dropped me home and then went out to get some sandwiches and apple juice, he came back and we ate them and by then I felt pretty better so decided to write and as usual Mike is serenading me on ukulele. Tomorrow I wish I could be off finishing my course with the rest of my class from today but I’ll be back at the resort holding onto my receptionist duties so I’ll just have to jump into part two with another class on my next day off. Hopefully the seas will be calmer and I’ll get to engage with the other divers a little more. I wonder what countries they’ll come from.