Hey guys. Back again. It’s Noelle. Your favorite group member. Obviously. I’m simply the best.
April 17-18
We had the most stellar experience at homestays! It was so cool to be fully immersed in a culture and learn to live in a different way. Sadly our time in rural Thailand had to come to an end, but we were all super stoked to head to Koh Tao for some world class diving. Once we left our beautiful homes, we headed out to Bangkok where we were able to present our Capstones that we’ve been working on since the beginning of the trip. It was super cool to see what everyone is passionate about, and it was especially cool to see those interests come to a front even in a different country. We spent a couple hours seeing the hard work our peers put into sharing a piece of themselves with the rest of us then we headed out to get on an overnight train. We boarded the train at 5:30 pm, thinking we’d get a full nights sleep in. Surprisingly, however, our train arrived to our destination at 1:30 am. We deboarded and hung out at the train station for awhile until we boarded a 6:00 am bus. These night hours were some of our silliest. While Simon somehow slept face down on a bench the entire time, the rest of us thought it’d be a really great use of time to make a bunch of 3 letter words out of Bananagrams tiles and see how fast we could read them. This occupied us for nearly two hours. When 6am rolled around, we boarded the bus to the ferry we would take to finally arrive on Koh Tao! The ferry ride was wildly beautiful. We sat on top and stared out at the endless ocean as we sailed out towards Koh Tao. After we disembarked, we went out to our incredible dive lodge overlooking the beach to get settled in for the next 4 days. After lunch we went down to the dive center where our team got their books for the Open Water certification to start their classes for the next day. We had some nice free time to explore the island and swim around. We had dinner and watched the sunset over this beautiful island.
April 19
This morning we had an early start, class sessions started at 8:30 and Hadley and I had our refresher course starting at 9:00. Learning about SCUBA was super fascinating and a great introduction to an unforgettable experience. Some of us were a little scared to begin our diving journey. But once we got into the process it was much easier and more comprehensive of a learning curve. Being able to take our first breaths under water was unreal. We had lunch between class work and actual diving. Hadley and I were able to go during the afternoon on two fun dives that were so incredible. It was great to be back in the water and look at the underwater world of Thailand. During our dives the rest of the group had a pool session to learn how to actually use the gear so we could have a successful next few days. We then had another beautiful sunset and dinner. After some great conversation we got to play a super fun game of trivia. I won. Too good. Thank you dad for only speaking in movie quotes. I crushed that section. Wade is gonna say that I did not win. But I did. By 0.5 of a point. So there. Winner.
April 20
Today we started true diving. Open water. No confined stuff. We got up early to get on the boat at 7:30. The first dive was a skills dive where we practiced how to clear our masks and how to recover our regulators. We got to go dive through some artificial reef which was super rad. It’s cool to see the conservation and regrowth that Thailand is trying to maintain for the reef. Especially in such a touristy area. It is a really big struggle to maintain a healthy reef with some many people coming to visit, but it was interesting to see all of the structures for reef restoration. After a brief swim through the artificial reef, we were able to go through a hard coral garden. The fish here are insanely beautiful. It was really amazing to see a reef that was so healthy. But also the realization that the coral is actually dying was quite prevalent as we dove. We had a discussion on the first day about reef health and how it is currently diminishing, and how we play a pivotal role as divers in maintaining reef conservation. (Edit from Becca and Hadley: Noelle actually led this discussion, and did a very beautiful job). After our second dive swimming around more amazing reefs, we went back to the hotel for a quick clean up before heading to watch the sunset on the beach. Tonight we began some closing activities led by Hadley and Becca and stood out under the stars together.
April 21
Good morning from day 4! We had another 7:30 boat ride out to 2 more incredible dives. The dive sites we’ve gone to have been so clear and so pristine. We went out to twins dive site for our first dive and out to white rock for the second. Both dives we got to go adventure around beautiful reef, one of our lovely dive instructors took some great videos of us diving which I hope are included in this blog. After dives we had lunch and more time to adventure around Koh Tao. After a chill afternoon we had dinner on the beach and stood in the water as the sun set. Then we again had closing curriculum with Hadley and Becca leading us. We’re all really sad that it’s our last night out here. It had been incredible to stand on the beach every night for the last few nights.
April 22
This morning we had a later breakfast, did another closing activity, and had some time to pack before getting on the ferry at 2. Our ride back was super nice and we then got headed out to the train station. Our train didn’t leave until 10:00 pm so we had some hours to kill at a nearby restaurant. We played Bananagrams, Anagrams, Werewolf, Contact and reminisced on the previous five hours spent in this area. Lots of travel today, once we got on the train we all packed ourselves into bed and went to sleep. We left the train early the next morning to go to our hotel in Bangkok.
Koh Tao was truly incredible. We’re all quite sad to leave the beautiful beaches and water of Thailand. It’s been an exciting week full of new experiences. Sad to leave. But excited for our next adventure.
