Day 27- Koh Chang Diving

I left Jeri, Anne, and Phil this morning for my diving adventure.  I was waiting for my ride from Scuba Dawgs at the reception desk when a rival scuba company showed up.  When I told the guy that I was diving with Scuba Dawgs, he told me that my ride was waiting in a truck outside.  I went out, only to find him gone.  The driver from Scandinavian Divers was very helpful by calling Scuba Dawgs and offering to bring me with him.  I climbed into the rear of the pick up for another hairraising ride along the Koh Chang coastal road.  The southern ½ of this road was even scarier than the section from the ferry to the hotel.  Steep hairpin turns, trucks passing motorbikes, motorbikes passing walkers, and a lot of bumps.  Because he added me, there was not enough room for everyone that he picked up, and one of the last riders stood on the rear step and hung on for dear life. 

We finally arrived at the main dock for watersports in Koh Chang.  There must have been at least a dozen scuba shops with dive boats heading out.

After signing in, we boarded the dive boat.  It was larger than most of the boats I’ve previously used for diving.  I wanted to do the first of 3 dives on the wreck of the HTMS Chang, This former US and Thai navy 300 ft long vessel was sunk 2 years ago in about 100 ft of water to act as an artificial reef and an attraction for divers.  

HTMS Chang before scuttling 2012

                                 

My certification did not allow me to do this deep a dive, so I had to dive with an instructor (ie it cost more) and I received my deep diver certification by doing this.  The main task was to prove I would not develop nitogen narcosis at depth.  This was done with a test whereby I was given a 5 by 5 grid with numbers 1-25 in random order.  I then had to point to each number in numerical order on the surface and at depth.  If I couldn’t do it or I was too slow, I would fail.  There was one other possibility that the instructor had not considered, my difficulty seeing!  I was barely able to find the numbers 1 & 2.  He realized that I was not disoriented, and probably though I was just stupid, but I motioned to my eyes and I think he must have understood, because I passed.

We then toured the ship and checked out some of the marine life.

The biggest problem I had with the day of diving was not below the water, but on board the boat.  I had taken a meclizine in the morning to ward off any seasickness, but it was not enough to overcome Poseidon’s wrath. Between dives I did all I could to keep down my breakfast, and when they started serving lunch on the boat, 

I had to hang over the rail.  Fortunately, while in the water, the nausea subsides.  I wish I could have swum back after the 3^rd dive.

After coming ashore, my mal-de -mer had all but disappeared but the respite was only temporary.  Sitting in the back of a pickup, driving on windy roads, sweltering in 90 + degree heat, and having spent the entire day nauseous was quite conducive to conversion of mal-de-mer to malade-en-voiture.  All in all, other than my three 50 min dives, it was a pretty miserable day.

I was really not looking forward to tomorrow’s outing.  We had plans to spend the entire day seeing the small islands adjacent to Koh Chang and the national park, and snorkel in the waters around the park- all by boat!

On a brighter note, the nausea was gone by dinner, and the sunset was, again, spectacular.