Day 72- Another day, another dive

Another day, another dive.

I had the best breakfast this morning. A pot of granola, fruit and yoghurt. It was incredible!

As I said yesterday I am obsessed. Today was a new challenge. The plan is a deep dive (30m), a buoyancy dive and a night dive. I cannot explain the levels of excitement and nerves that I was feeling. But I knew with my incredibly talented and patient instructor Filepe by my side I would be ok! 

We did three amazing dives. The first being Chumphon Pinnacle. Here we went down to about 29.5m. It was beautiful. Full of corals and the most colourful anemone.  Many people will know these as the thing that nemo lived in. Clownfish have a really awesome relationship with the anemone. The anemone provide them with shelter and defence and don’t sting them on the agreement that the clownfish clean them. Marine life is incredible. Chumphon Pinnacle is a huge dive site and is absolutely beautiful. A highlight was seeing a large grooper. It was huge! Absolutely massive! It was a great dive! 

The second dive site was a wreck dive. This was my first wreck dive and I loved it. It was the HMS Sattakut. This is a 48m US world war 2 vessel. It was commissioned into the Royal Thai Navy in 1947 where it served until 2007. It was purpose sunk in Koh Tao as an artificial reef and dive site. It was so cool to see the captains area and guns. Visitability in the area wasn’t fantastic so we swam to the Hin Pee Wee site where we looked at some more marine life and saw my favourite parrot fish. I loved it! 

Waiting for the third dive we witnessed the most beautiful sunset! 

The final dive was the night dive. This was at White Rock site. Diving in the dark is so disorientating but absolutely awesome. We had a flashlight to see the marine life. In our flashlight we saw the plankton lighting up. We also saw a sting ray and crab. It may not sound like a lot but seeing these beautiful creatures in their natural environment was stunning! 

I was feeling a bit reflective today. I had some time whilst I was waiting for my dive to start where I was on my own. This is what I was most nervous about before coming travelling. I have always hated being on my own and to be honest never really have been before. In the UK I had a great support network of family, friends and colleagues. But now I’m on a Thai island thousands of miles away from the people I used to rely on and I’m actually ok. I’m still breathing and sitting looking at the beautiful beach and ocean. For the first time I am enjoying being on my own. I have time just to look at the texture of the palm trees and the sound of the ocean without interruption. I have never felt so at peace. So maybe my anxiety about being on my own wasn’t actually being on my own. Maybe I just didn’t know how to appreciate what is around me. 

I know I am lucky. I am seeing things that some people never will see. I am doing things I never thought I was brave enough to do. If you had asked me about wanting to dive this time last year I would have replied a statistic about the associated risks. I was too scared to try new things. I was not confident enough to be in a bikini without giving a damn. And right now I’m sitting here having eaten a meal with a food baby knowing that my body is strong. I no longer believe that I am a bit thick, I have a brilliant mind, it can learn things quickly. My thighs are no longer just a fat part of my body that I hate but they are strong enough to help me swim at 30m. My eyes are no longer rubbish, they are corrected with contacts and allowing me to see things I have never seen. I am no longer abnormally tall, instead I can see further into the distance. Now I’m not saying I’m better then anyone else (I really don’t believe that) but what I do believe is that my parents did a fantastic job of making me a strong human and that my physical body is strong and healthy. My mind is more resilient then I thought, I am braver then I thought. I have stopped comparing myself to others. I am actually happier then I have ever been. I have no stress. Instead I have learnt to just take one day at a time. When I was 18 someone I worked with told me this; ‘don’t worry about tomorrow, worry about today and tomorrow will look after itself’. I finally get it. I still haven’t figured out the equation for happiness but all I know is right now I feel it. Maybe that’s the key. Maybe we are all looking for reason and logic whereas actually we just need to focus on today and how we feel. 

Overall it was another beautiful day on the beautiful island of Koh Tao.