It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Almost Drowns

After spending five nights in Bangkok we fly down to Phuket to experience some of the beach culture of Thailand.  Our hotel, The Shore, picks us up and drives us 90 minutes to Kata Beach.  Along the way it starts to rain.  Everyone at the hotel tells us it's incredibly surprising for it to rain outside the rainy season.  Sure....   It only lasts for about an hour and the clouds gives us some gorgeous twilight photos.  And the staff is correct - it's the only rain we see the entire time we're there.

The view from our own private infinity pool.

We're celebrating an anniversary this time (a little early!) so we have some decorations waiting for us in the room.  

I wonder if I can make towel swans when guests come to visit?

The "flowers" are made by the
arrangement of individual petals
and leaves.  What a cute idea!

The next morning we're treated to a scrumptious in-room breakfast (they do it for all the guests, not just couples celebrating their anniversary). 

The sunrise makes a nice backdrop.

Couldn't get the sunrise behind us - the light was too difficult to work for a selfie.

Unfortunately for our stomachs, we have to eat and run.  We had to schedule our scuba diving for our first day, so after some quick bites and our fruit smoothies (it's not always alcoholic drinks), we're off to meet our guide, Mike, from Phuket Dive Tours.  He's Swedish, and taller than Steve, but we forget to take any pictures with him. 



 

The view off the back of the shuttle boat.

We've done scuba in tandem with an instructor, snuba, plus snorkeled lots of times, so I wasn't really worried about "real" scuba diving. We've arranged to do two dives as part of their Discover Scuba Diving tour. It takes about 90 minutes to reach the dive site, Ko Racha Yai, but we're on a shuttle boat with comfortable seating inside and out. Breakfast is also served, but we don't really eat much since we had the in room breakfast before we were picked up. 

The view off the side of the shuttle boat.  Cute guy!

Not the best picture of all the sick people, but I was trying to be discrete.

Mike goes over all the safety info with us as we go out, so the time passes quickly.  He's only working with us, but there are about 25 other people on the boat, both divers and instructors.  A large number of them are Chinese, and Mike tells us many of them come to visit and have never swum before, and their first experience underwater is scuba diving. That's just incredible and brave. They don't look too good on the ride out though - it's a little choppy, and they're turning green. I make sure to sit upwind, just in case.

Our dive location

Steve excels at the giant step off the boat!

We suit up and go down 30 feet underwater. I'm nervous my ears might act up, but I'm able to equalize the pressure. Mike gives us some good advice - don't wait until your ears hurt, but go ahead and equalize them regularly on your way down.

Pretty blues!

Once we reach the bottom, Steve goes through the regulator removal exercise without a problem. When it's my turn I have an issue (and analyzing it later on the boat I realize exactly what happened). While the regulator is out of your mouth you're supposed to blow bubbles so you don't keep air inside your lungs. But I blow all my air out with the bubbles (small lung capacity) and I don't have enough breath left to clear my regulator. So I was struggling a bit because I'm breathing in the sea water, but Mike presses the button that uses air from my scuba tank to clear my regulator so I'm okay.

Fish?  Check.  Coral?  Check.  Blue water?  Check.

Then we go through clearing your mask which I've done before without a problem. Again, Steve's a star pupil, but when it's my turn I lift the mask too much.  It floods and at the same time I suck water into the regulator, too. And I have a little panic attack. Now I know how horses feel when their eyes are rolling and they're rimmed with white. All I could think of was I wanted to get to the surface. Mike's wonderful – he's like the scuba diver whisperer – so even without talking he's able to motion for me to be calm and focus on him. He clears my regulator for me and because I'm unconsciously exhaling a bit through my nose (like a horse puffing out air) and he just touches the mask top which ends up clearing my mask.  

Wait, where are my bubbles?

I can see and breathe again but I still want to go to the surface.  We're able to return quickly because we're only about 30 feet deep. At the top I'm coughing a bit because I did swallow some of the sea water.  Mike (and Steve) is very patient and we decide we're going to practice everything again but in shallow water. So we do the regulator exercise and this time I don't quite get my regulator all the way back in before I try to breathe.  I'm sucking in sea water again and I just want to get back to the surface where I can get some air. Once I hack out this round of sea water I tell Mike, "Don't worry about it.  I won't do it, just go down with Steve," and Mike cuts me off and calmly tells me, "You know what to do - just push the button to clear the regulator if you don't have the breath to do it in your lungs." So we go back under and I successfully release my regulator twice and clear my mask.  Yay!  Mike has me stay under the water as he tugs Steve to join us.  We all descend back down to the bottom and my ears are fine again. We're able to dive for about 35 minutes, and I'm okay - I feel confident I can handle a mask or regulator problem. 

Show off

I made it!

Lots of fish color coordinate with the sand.

Typical view!

Anyone feel like clam for dinner?

We have our lunch break and we notice a large yacht at the entrance of the cove - and when I say large, I mean small cruise ship size (I thought we took a picture of it, but apparently not). One of the instructors looks it up, and discovers it's the Queen Mary, a charter ship available at a weekly rate of a measly $2 million dollars. That will NOT be our next vacation! We never see who the people are (it's too far away) though they go out on jet skis for a little bit. (Side Note - on our return from our next day's boat trip, we see the Queen Mary again, on the east side of the island. We still can't tell who's on it.)

Underwater world

We then prepare for our second dive. Back in the water, Mike and I practice the skills at the surface and they go well, but I'm not really excited about diving again. We go back down and I'm uncomfortable for the first ten minutes. All I can think about is how dry my mouth is, I'm tired of breathing through my mouth, etc, etc. I'm really not having fun, and I wish I could just go back up, but I don't want to interrupt Steve's dive (he loves it). 

Then the sun comes back out, giving a deeper color to the sea, and I begin paying more attention to what's around me.  Wait, this IS fun!  I forget all about my discomforts, which I think I was creating because I was still nervous about drowning.

Worthy of framing!

Dare you to touch him!

He looks tasty!

In addition to being our instructor Mike is also our underwater photographer.  Along with  the scenic shots we have some fun photos!

Scuba diving is thirsty work!

Freeze frame

How many legs and arms do I have?

Regulator kiss!

After awhile, Mike motions for us to ascend, and I'm amazed that 50 minutes has already passed - but it's actually been only 40 (though still longer than I thought). Steve's running low on air - he used up a lot of his tank swimming around and exploring. 

How many do you think he can catch?

It ends up being a great experience and I'm glad I stuck with it. After the first dive, or if I had gone up early on the second dive, I'd probably never scuba dive again.  But I'd do another escorted dive. I wish I had thought to practice more with "losing" my regulator at the end (I still had 60 psi left in my tank when Steve was running out) - I know it just takes more repetition to feel comfortable with it.

One of my favorite pictures from the dive.

Here we are post dives, safe and sound!