7-3 Koh Tao - Day 1

Once off the night boat, I made my way through the crowds of tuk tuks, guest house promoters, and laborers unloading cargo. My plan was to rent a moped and go hunting around for dive shops and guest houses on the East side of the island in the popular area called Sai Ri. It's the best place on the island to find a good SCUBA dive shop and hang out. There are a few small luxury resort outposts to the North and South, and just one place on the East end. With over 100 dive outfits operating on the East end, the price competition was in my favor. This is the #2 place (volume-wise) in the world for issuing openwater certification due to quality diving, safe instruction, and dirt-cheap pricing. How does $25 for 2 dives off a boat sound?

I stopped in at a coffee shop and joined to guys my age from the bay area for breakfast. Ben & Jason were on break from college for 6 weeks through Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. At 8:30am, the rental shops opened and we split up to haggle the best price for the 3 of us. We got newer mopeds with nobby tires for 3 days for just $4 each. The roads off the main drag in Koh Tao are washed out and only navigable by competent dirt bikes or off-road vehicles in many areas. I'm doing some advanced diving courses this week, so I can get decent discounts on a room affiliated with the dive shop I go through. We decided it better that we split off due to them not being able to get the discount and there were no available rooms we could find for 3 people. I checked out 3 shops and wanted a final opinion from a local. Every shop on the island has a poster up for "Good Times Adventures", which is an adventure tourism outfit run by a friend of my sister's fiance. Tim Servino and his girlfriend Charlie own and run Good Times Adventures. They do SCUBA diving, free diving, rock climbing, bouldering, cruises, snorkeling, cliff jumping, treks, and anything they don't do, they can outsource. I sat with Charlie for an hour and got some great advice. 30min later, I booked a 2-day Rescue Diver course, 2-dive Nitrox course, and 2-dive Deep Water course with SCUBA Junction for just $500. I got a basic bungalow with fan across the street fromt he dive shop for $6/night. $500 is getting me one-on-one training, which would be triple back home.

Later that evening I met with Tim, Charlie, and their co-workers/friends Jeff, Bob, Jody, and several others over some cold Tiger beers. As I sat there, swinging in a hammock on their back deck overlooking the ocean during sunset, I got a taste of why people get lost here. After a tasty pasta dinner, I was in bed by 10am, excited for the next day's diving trip.