Heating Up and Winding Down

Hi everyone. Hope every one reading is doing good. I finished my scuba diving certification this morning. Yesterday I went out on two dives around an area called Twins.

There is two twin peaks under the water here we swam around, and then we went to another area called White Rock, which a big white rock that peaks a couple meters from the surface. Both dives were amazing, but I got chased for a little by a trigger fish at one.

Trigger fish are these fish that eat coral so they have sharp teeth. They're called trigger fish, because when they are going to attack they have a small fin on the top of them that sticks up like a trigger. They are also an aggressive, territorial fish. They have a territory that is a cone shape of where ever they are to the surface so if you ever run into one you should swim on your back straight out of their territory, and defend yourself with your fins if need be. Don't go up because then you're still in their area since it gets larger as you get closer to the surface.

It wasn't too scary since I knew what I was supposed to do. I'm glad that my reaction was to not freak out and instead to think about what I was told to do. The final dives this morning were back at Twins, and an area called Buoyancy world, where they've set up multiple metal shapes and swim throughs on the bottom of the ocean you can play in. After that we went to an area called Pei Wei. It was amazing, because it was much deeper, there is also a shipwreck right near there that we swam over to.

Doing these dives got me so excited to do more with scuba diving. It is such a beautiful experience to be able to be a part of an underwater environment and see all the amazing creatures and formations of the ocean.

After the dives last night I met up with Stacy, Carl, and Stefan, the Aussies, for Stefan's birthday.

We went to a bar restaurant initially to watch the sunset, followed, by another beach bar, and then another beach bar. At night time there was lots

of fire dancers on the beach, which were mesmerizing to watch. At one point Carl even got into the action and one of the fire dancers taught him to do a fire dance with these two chains with balls of fire on the end. As he got comfortable with it he entertained us by dancing around as

he twirled the balls of fire. It was so much fun. I had wished that I didn't have to leave early, but my dives this morning were at 7 am. I'm still a pretty early riser here so it wasn't too hard to get up that early.

Now that I have my certification I'm ready to meet my friends and do some diving in the Philippines in a couple days. For now I will spend one more night here in Ko Tao and then I will head to Ko Samui for 2 nights, fly back to Bangkok, and then on to the Philippines where I will be for the rest of September. This trip has been amazing so far and I feel blessed and lucky to still be at the beginning of it. It's had challenges, but I've felt grateful to be in a position to take on those challenges. I continue to grow and change, as we all do, and strive more and more to live and love. I hope all is well with everyone reading. I'll keep you updated as usual as things go along.

written by

Kirk on August 31, 2012 from Ko Tao, Thailand

from the travel blog: Kirk's South East Asia Adventure

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