From Bangkok we flew straight to the small airport in Chumphon, to take a ferry from there to the island of Koh Tao. This time we were very lucky with our accommodation. The room was better than expected and very spacious. Within a 5-minute walk we could reach the popular Sairee Beach. It wasn't a snorkelling beach, but a great place to watch the sunset or relax on the beach. Hard-core snorkellers like us could also swim a little further out and admire at least a few corals and fish along the rocky coast.
We had chosen Koh Tao because we had heard about the great snorkelling spots you could reach straight from the shore. Full of motivation, we rented a scooter and set off to explore the island. Unfortunately, we found that it wasn't that easy to watch the fish and corals in the water after all. The weather didn't quite play along, so we had more rainy days than expected, or than would have been typical for this time of year. As a result, some beaches were washed full of plastic waste, it was very wavy, and we didn't feel like fighting our way through the rubbish for poor visibility underwater.
We sat out the rain and took a chance on booking a snorkelling boat tour. That way we could explore the highlights around the island. Our Belgian friend Lynn, with whom we had done our motorbike adventure in Vietnam, had meanwhile also arrived on Koh Tao. She booked onto the same tour, so we had a Vietnam-gang revival and once again lots of fun together. For once we had good weather that day, and the snorkelling spots were good under the circumstances. Some corals were still intact. Turtles, triggerfish and even a small shark showed up; Lynn even found a small seahorse. To this day, unfortunately, I still haven't made the acquaintance of an underwater horse. It's one of my dearest wishes and I hope to see one on our world trip after all. I'll keep you posted. Our boat was equipped with a slide, which Chris of course tried out. I probably don't even need to tell you that he did somersaults off the boat. Unfortunately, after this great day we had to say goodbye to Lynn, who soon had to head home. But we weren't alone for long. Our funny Spanish freediving buddy Jon, whom we had taken to our hearts on our boat safari in Raja Ampat, also arrived in the following days. We had stayed in touch constantly and had been working towards meeting again. He had just come from Deep Week (a freediving camp) on Koh Phi Phi, where he had been teaching, and had brought one of his students along. That's how we met the cheerful Brit Nat, who had emigrated to Australia. Since we were now a group of 4 freedivers, we wanted to find a dive school that would take us out to sea on their boat for a fee. That way we could jump into the water at spots a little further away and explore the depths of the sea on our own. Together we went round the dive schools and actually managed to get a ride for the next day with a Spanish scuba dive centre heading to the spots we wanted.
At the first and second spot the visibility was really bad. The boys, who can all dive very deep, told me about the murky soup at 25 m. At my depths it wasn't any better. Still, it was a great adventure, and once again the time together was a wonderful experience in itself. Nat seemed like a pretty laid-back guy, and we fitted together perfectly as a freediving team. At the third spot it was really beautiful. I had a remarkable, really close shark encounter when a reef shark curiously swam alongside me at a depth of 5 m. Unfortunately, at some point I ran out of air and had to surface again.
Dinners together as a newly formed clique rounded off our time, and Nat and we soon had to say a heavy-hearted goodbye to Jon, who was already moving on towards Bali. We visited Nat at his hotel, which had great beach access, and snorkelled along the rocks with him there. We all got on so well that we immediately arranged a "night snorkelling date" with him for the following night, to explore Koh Tao's underwater world at night too. Chris and I were very happy about the extra company of an experienced freediver, as completely on our own and without knowing the island, we always have a slightly uneasy feeling about going into the water at night. The night snorkelling meet-up with Nat turned out to be the highlight of our time on Koh Tao. First we swam a little further out with our torches but didn't see too many fish. Soon we went back into shallower water, where there was quite a lot of interesting stuff to watch. We had so much fun together, and Chris spotted a total of 3 octopuses for the group. Two of them were holding hands and gave us great material for our video footage. We played with the bioluminescent plankton, and everyone could snorkel around carefree on their own in the shallow water in front of Nat's hotel. The best experiences are usually the ones that cost nothing at all – except maybe a bit of motivation. Unexpectedly, we found a great new friend in Nat, who had probably come to appreciate us just as much and immediately invited us to visit him in Australia.
We can't say yet whether our globetrotter route will take us there. In any case, it's exactly experiences like these that make travelling the world so special. Nat left the island two days before us, also heading home. In a few weeks our good friends from Vienna, Basti and Manu, would be staying here too, so we left a bit of luggage at their future accommodation to make our suitcases a little lighter. So Koh Tao stays in our good memories, despite all the rain, partly as a kind of hub and meeting point for old and new acquaintances. Soon we too took a ferry back to the mainland – but this time further south to Surat Thani, to get on to Krabi from there. More about that in the next diary entry.
Enjoy the underwater and above-water footage from Koh Tao: