Diving in Koh Lanta
After many back and forth discussions over where, when, and for what price over the past several months, we finally decided to go on our first scuba discovery dive. Unlike a three or four day PADI course which leaves you with a nice shiny ID card showing you're qualified to dive w/out an instructor/dive master, the discovery dive is more or less like a chaperoned date. A chaperoned date for 13 year olds if you catch my drift. Anyway, I had been sold on doing a scuba dive for some time. Sarah took a little more persuasion. Luckily the persuasion came in the form of a snorkeling trip on Koh Phi Phi. After that she was hooked. She wanted to be below the surface at any cost. After a bit of research we chose Phoenix Divers of Koh Lanta to take us on what turned out to be an adventure that opened our eyes to the majesty of the sea. David, our dive instructor who I secretly think was born with gills, was amazing. He went through all the info carefully and thoroughly, making sure we knew the basics before stepping into the water. There literally couldn't have been a better instructor. After learning to dive in Her Majesty's Navy he dove on oil rigs in the North Sea doing repair work. Yeah, the dude's a badass. Anyway, he was perfect and patient with us - especially Sarah. Though she was apprehensive at first and needed a guiding hand when she first got in the water, she was off like a friggin' mermaid in no time. She darted along coral walls teasing fish and loving every minute of it. She was even the first to bring up getting our PADI certificate on our next adventure. Me, of course I loved it. It was my idea in the first place! My only regret is that we didn't take the plunge (pun intended) and do this earlier. Thanks again David for introducing us to the under water world. Photos courtesy of my iphone.
