Scuba Diving in Paradise

Young Man had the incredible opportunity to go on a scout trip to Koh Lok and the Similan Islands where he completed his PADI scuba certification, earned a bunch of merit badges, and had the time of his life.

As we were dropping him off at the airport for his first ever flight without us, I just couldn't help but feel so proud of what a great kid he is. Young Man has a heart of gold and even though we were excited for this opportunity for him, it was still hard to see him go, mostly because I knew we would miss him so much!

Here's what he said about the trip (pictures are from other scouts and leaders on the trip):
Day 1: My flight to Phuket left at 11:30am so we got up at around 8 and left the house at 9ish to be there by 10. It was a two-hour flight, so I took the opportunity to study my scuba workbook. When I landed, me and the other 3 people I was going with went outside to meet the van driver picking us up. After a quick lunch at a nearby Subway, we commenced the 1 1/2 hour drive to the house we were staying at for 3 days. We beat the people that were driving (they left the day before to start the 17-hour drive) so we decided to check out the beach. It was great. The other group got there as soon as we got back. My favorite thing about the house was that it had a ping-pong table. That was set up almost instantly and was played nonstop until bed time. I didn’t ever get a blanket this night so I was freezing in the cabin I shared with 3 other people (they insisted on aircon).

Day 2: We woke up early, ate, and then started playing table tennis. At 9, we set out to go to the pool where we were doing our training and meeting our dive masters. That lasted until about 2pm.When we got back, we listened to music, ate some more, went to the beach, slept, and played even more table tennis. We had our first oceanography merit badge lecture that evening and went to the beach at night to collect plankton samples. We came back and spent the next hour looking at the hundreds of tiny animals we found in the water (including three jelly fish which we thought were clumps of plankton at first). I forgot to ask for a blanket and the was cold all night again. I was smarter this time though and slept in a hoodie and a towel.

Day 3: Waterfall day! Everyone except for me and a few other people went to a nearby waterfall to hike, climb, and explore. The people who stayed played table tennis all day instead. (-= One of my friends that went to the waterfall climbed up to a restricted area, fell off, and broke his wrist. No scuba diving for him. He had to be flown back to Chiang Mai for medical treatment. We got on the boat at 10.00pm that night and went to bed at 11. This was my last night sleeping inside without a blanket.

Day 4 (Day 1 on the boat): Wake up was at 6am every morning. We went to the main room for the dive briefing and all of the introductions etc. Normally we dove at 6.30 but on the first day, we didn’t get in until 8am. The first dive was good but the second and third ones were the best that day. I saw pistol shrimp, both kinds of mantis shrimp, schools of barracuda, coral everywhere, hundreds of fish etc. In between dives we played chess, slept, and watched movies. I finally decided to sleep on the open aired roof of the boat because it was much warmer outside. This was my first night actually sleeping well.

Daily Dive ScheduleWake up-6am
Dive one-6.30am
Breakfast-7.50am
Dive two-10am
Lunch-11.30am
Dive three-2.00pm
Snack- 3.10pm
Dive 4- 5.00pm
Dinner- 7.00pm

Day 5: The same as day 4. We started a chess tournament. We saw lion fish, scorpion fish, moray eels, shrimp, seahorses, more mantis shrimp, and the first turtle of the trip. I again slept on the roof and it was amazing.

Day 6: Supposedly the best diving in Thailand and I believe it! We ended up spending all four dives here- http://www.richelieu-rock.com/. It was sad because several people were sick that day and decided to sit out on the first dive. I almost stayed but decided to go at the last second. On that very first dive we saw the whale shark. I was glad I went then! We were swimming close to the bottom when our dive instructor told us to look up and there it was! A 5-meter-long whale shark. We swam up to it and had to grab on to the rock wall we were scuba diving below because of the current. The farthest it got from us was about 2 meters away as it was swimming up and down slowly with its mouth wide open. We observed it for the rest of our dive (20 min) The closest it ever got was about an armslength away as we and it were swimming away. We didn’t see it any of the other dives but they were also amazing dives. I fell asleep on the roof of the boat and missed the last dive but it was ok. This night started normally with me sleeping on the roof. It started sprinkling at about 3am though so I moved one level down (a roof but no walls) and fell back asleep. It started really pouring at 4 though so I woke up again no longer safe from the rain. I had to wait until 6 for everyone else to wake up and the day to start.

Day 7: On the last day, we were only doing two dives and the 7 of us that were flying back weren’t allowed to go on either of them for nitrogen reasons. We hung out, slept, played chess, and ate while the others were diving. Two mantas were seen which made jealous. The last dive was also pretty sad to miss. Huge schools of lionfish, barracuda, and several fish. There were also hundreds of scorpion fish throughout the dive site. We got to the dock at around 1.30pm and left for the 1 hour drive to the airport. Our flight left at 8.30pm. Five hours to wait. Ughhhh. We could have been home by 5pm instead of 11pm! With school the next morning! And I had already not slept well the previous night. Ughhhh. Overall it was an amazing experience and I absolutely loved it!

We were so happy to see him (one of the last ones off the plane!) when he finally got home and can't wait to go diving with him soon!