First week in Phuket

Well the past week and a half have been pretty exciting. We had a pretty relaxing week in Phuket with long time friends, and we stayed at a hotel that was a little fancier than we have been traditionally use to.  Our room would literally open right up to the pool, so we would step out onto our veranda and have a couple of chairs and steps into the pool. It was pretty amazing.  That week Christine and I did 3 dives off of Phuket and we saw some awesome stuff.  Check out the short video for a couple of things. We saw a baby great barracuda, which was pretty amazing.  Unfortunately we didn’t get any footage of it but we do have a hilarious video of Christine thinking she turned off the video when she actually was turning off.  (she did some take some amazing footage of an octopus though)

Scuba in Phuket Jan 30

So last Friday the group headed back to Korea and I stayed behind. Saturday I did my emergency first responder course, so now I am officially EFR certified.  I think by the end of everything I will actually be certified to teach an EFR course.  Then Sunday I began my training for rescue diver.  In the morning we were in the pool working on drills, and then we drove to Kata beach to do a dive.  Some of you might remember that Kata beach was the place that Christine and I got engaged back in  2009.  I saw some pretty awesome stuff that dive like a sea horse, lobster, pipe fish, and a giant purple jellyfish, that looked like some weird floating orb in the water.  It was amazing that it was just off of the shore.  I did some practice rescue stuff, and then the next day we went out to the islands and I did some more tests, so by Monday I was officially a PADI rescue diver. 

Yesterday I began my divemaster training with a half day of classroom stuff, just going over my responsibilities, and what all I’ll be doing by the end of the training.  I am essentially an intern for the next month or so.  I think one of the nice things about this current stage of my life is that I am not putting a lot of pressure on myself.  It’s not like this scuba thing was a life long dream or anything, so if I decide that it’s no longer fun, or if I just miss Christine too much, I can just go back home. No worries.  Right now things are going well though, so time will tell.  (although if I do go home, I’m really hoping to skip winter).

My instructor is the only guy that works here that’s first language is English, and he’s from India.  He’s also about to have a baby, like literally any day, maybe even today. My next-door neighbor is a guy from Iran, and he’s a lot of fun.  He just finished his instructor training and is planning on staying here in Phuket for a while.  I think I will probably do blog posts on some of the people I have met later. I currently live in a small apartment with a kitchen and bedroom and bathroom, no air conditioning but then again you get what you pay for.  My place is currently about $650 for 3 months, and if I get the AC upgrade it’s $2250 for 3 months, so it looks like I am going with out AC.  Next week I am changing apartments, just moving a few doors down to one that’s a little nicer and has a bigger fridge.  When that happens I’ll do a video of the dive center and my new apartment.  That’s the one nice thing about the place, I am literally right at the dive center.

Well that’s about all for now. Check back sometime next week for an update. I think Sundays will be my day off if I can swing it.

Thanks for the prayers, keep it real.