For Rocky:
You asked about the diving, it was excellent. A two hour trip from Samui to Koh Tao, then a morning dive to the open water Chomphon Pinnacle where we got down to 23m, loads of shoals of small stuff and dense coral. My dive buddy didn't seem to use any air, and she still had 130bar whilst the rest of us were down to 70 and ready to come up, so the instructor put me on a buoy line to go up and do a safety stop whilst he took her to tag onto a group that was going to be down longer. The thing was, he put me on the wrong line and I surfaced at another dive boat and had a nice surface swim in choppy water back to our tub.
Then lunch as prepped by the Thai captain's wife - superb peasant currys, followed by an afternoon dip at Shark Island. We only got down to 10m as visibility wasn't great, but that did mean the dive lasted nearly an hour
, plenty of Parrot fish and a lot of avoiding trigger fish (mating season, so they are a bit feisty).
Beer and much conviviality on the two hour trip back.
The dive school were brilliant, they sorted all the kit, all we had to do was slip on the BCD and do buddy checks
http://www.asiadivesite.com/thailand-dive-sites/koh-tao/chumphon-pinnacle.php
http://www.asiadivesite.com/thailand-dive-sites/koh-tao/shark-island.php
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