M&C: Khao Lak & Similan Islands

New map!

We flew into Phuket late on the night of the 22nd, just walking the half-kilometer or so to our hotel after being quoted 300THB ($10) for the 2-minute taxi ride. The hotel was simple but adequate and we slept soundly. After an early-morning Chinese food breakfast, we took a taxi about an hour and a half north to the teeny little tourist town of Khao Lak, best known as the jumping-off point for the Similan Islands. We had booked a four-day PADI open water scuba certification course that included two nights on a liveaboard at the Similan Islands. Although there are probably literally thousands of cheaper and more convenient places where you can get scuba certified in Thailand, we had booked this trip hoping to have an amazing experience in addition to getting our bare-bones certification.

After checking into our hotel in Khao Lak, we walked right next door to the dive shop we had chosen, Khao Lak Explorer. We filled out some paperwork and met our primary instructor, Kai, as well as our secondary instructor, Miguel, who was assisting the course as part of the process of getting his dive master certification. A quick gear fitting and a 15-minute taxi ride later, and we were at a small resort pool where we would be spending the first day of our course before heading out to the ocean. We had watched several videos ahead of time, but we still had a couple hours of theory and basic equipment set-up before actually getting in the pool, by which time we were very eager to get started.

The first plunge underwater (safely in the shallow end) was exhilarating, surreal, and utterly terrifying, completely countermanding every water-related survival instinct we'd developed in 28 years of experience. Even though we were supposed to be focusing on the first task of our course, clearing water out of our mask, we were actually just struggling to get our bearings and figure out how the hell this was even supposed to work. Finally, however, we completed the first task and took a break for lunch. By that time, Chandler was starting to feel a little more confident about breathing underwater, but Michelle was having a more difficult time and started to spiral into an increasingly panicky thought process that just worsened the longer the break went. It eventually became apparent that she wouldn't be able to continue that day. Luckily, we were able to work out an arrangement whereby we would simply add an extra pool day (giving Michelle another shot at it the next day) before heading out on the boat for our onsite dives.

Chandler finished out the first pool day, loving the 1 student to 2 teacher ratio, and practicing several underwater skills, including providing emergency air to another diver and regulating his buoyancy underwater. Michelle hung out at the pool and made some reassuring communications to friends and family who had gone through this process. When Chandler finished up for the day, we went back into town and treated ourselves to a very expensive but very delicious dinner of Italian-style wood-fired pizza.

The next day, Michelle was determined to conquer her fear. She focused on taking it slowly and worrying about only the controllable things that were bothering her. In a memorable moment, she spent about 20 minutes that morning laying in bed, listening to fear-of-flying guided meditations while wearing the mask and breathing through a snorkel. At the pool, Kai and Miguel were very understanding, and Miguel especially helped her practice her breathing underwater as a way to ease into the day's tasks. Soon, she overcame the mental block and completed the day's tasks with no problem, this time accompanied by a new classmate, Ryan, a 26-year old from New York. While Michelle completed the course, Chandler went for a long walk on the beach that included a nice swim in the Andaman Sea and a beer in a shady bungalow overlooking the shore. That night, we met back up with Ryan and had a nice dinner at a restaurant up on a hill overlooking the town, celebrating the fact that all three of us had now completed the first and hardest step.

We woke up at 6:30 on the morning of the 25th to catch the shuttle to the speedboat that would take us to meet up with the liveaboard dive boat at the Similan Islands. We had booked three full days of diving with 10 total dives. It took about an hour and a half to get out there, even zipping along at a good clip. The dive boat was pretty crowded with a mix of people spending the night and people on day trips: some scuba divers, some snorkelers, and some completing various levels of certification course, like us. The islands themselves looked like barely more than piles of boulders strewn around in the middle of the ocean, covered in foliage that ranged from dense jungle to wide grassy areas. Several of the islands also have gorgeous white-sand beaches that really give the feeling of tropical paradise.

After very briefly settling in, it was time to get ready for the first dive. We geared up like we had been taught and just jumped right in. We repeated a couple exercises that we had learned in the pool, but otherwise just started swimming, learning by doing. As total novice divers, it was pretty difficult to maintain correct buoyancy underwater, and we just rose and fell with our breath, making more of a sine wave with our bodies than a sleek arrow of movement underwater. That said, it was incredible to actually be underwater in the ocean for the first time, and even this very basic beginner dive was teeming with thousands of fish, amazingly-shaped coral, and a variety of sea stars, sea cucumbers, and other fauna. We ended the dive absolutely pumped and riding high on the adrenaline.

The second dive of the day ended up being cut short because of an unusually strong underwater current, and we spent nearly half an hour of the third dive in one place watching Kai and another instructor struggle to return a rescued seahorse to a little coral perch. But we also felt that we were starting to get the hang of it a little bit more. It also helped that we saw lots of really cool creatures, including lionfish, parrotfish, dozens of kinds of coral, and crown of thorns starfish. Between the second and third dives, we had the chance to venture onto one of the islands, and we wandered happily through the dense jungle to another amazing white-sand beach, seeing some Nicobar pigeons, pacific reef herons, and dozens of large bats that may have been flying foxes. That evening, we had an early dinner, socialized a little with the others on board, and went to bed around 8:30.

The next morning, we were up at 6:00, ready to jump in the ocean for our first dive at about 7:00. We ran through a couple more exercises, then had another very nice dive, going to about 18 meters, the maximum depth for which we would be certified. After breakfast and a written exam, we were back in the water, completed our final couple of exercises, and were now officially open water certified. We promptly celebrated with our most interesting dive yet, in which we swam among giant underwater boulders and rock faces, all of them teeming with life.

After this dive, Miguel had to head back to shore, so we bade him farewell and chilled for a while as the boat motored over to a beach on a different island. We anchored in the bay and swam to shore with Ryan to explore the island a little. There was a short trail up to an amazing overlook, but we thought we were short on time to catch the last dive of the day, so we quickly took some photos and hustled back to the boat, arriving out of breath and exhausted. Turns out, there was no need to rush at all, and we actually had to sit around for another 45 minutes or so while waiting for everyone to get back. We had a short and simple last dive of the day, seeing a couple small stingrays, but otherwise nothing new. Another early dinner, a couple beers, and early to bed to prepare for another 6AM wakeup.

By that time, we had motored over to a new island, Koh Bon, a little bit away from the Similans. We were going to have all three of that day's dives around this island, which is known for having particularly spectacular wildlife. It truly lived up to its reputation, and we had our most amazing encounters yet. The highlight of these by far was 4 manta rays, two in each of our second and third dives, that swooped gracefully among the divers and awed us with their enormous size (at least 4-5 meters tip to tip) as well as their seeming benign curiosity in us and what we were doing there. The various dive guides were very excited as well and assured us that we were really lucky to have seen so many of them up close. In addition to the rays, we saw several octopus and eels as well as the now-routine bewildering array of fish and coral just absolutely everywhere.

By the time we surfaced from our final dive, we were feeling pretty exhausted and glad to be heading back to shore. We took the speedboat about an hour back to the mainland where we had a quick dinner with Ryan and crashed out early, reeling from the excitement and newness of it all.

Next up: Trang