NEW BLOG ADDRESS

NEW BLOG ADDRESS.  I've been having multiple problems blogging on this site, and have changed it to:

http://kaitlinstraker.wordpress.com 

Hopefully this site will be much much better!

Dunked Under

My morning: 

The alarm goes off at 5:40am and I roll over cursing the fact that I have to be up, maybe dropping a few f-bombs and hitting the sleep. Ten minutes later at 5:50am, the alarm goes off again and this time it's oh shit! And I bound out of bed, slap on my contacts, throw on a bikini and some board shorts, grab my instant oatmeal that I packed from home and head out down to Big Blue, stopping at 7/11 on the way for some yogurt and water for my breakfast.  Then, I organize equiptment and get ready to load the longtail boat that will take us out to the big boat.  It's 6:30 now and all of the customers and students start to arrive, everyone looking very tired and groggy. The weather is not very nice, I'm expecting it to rain any minute.  We head out to the dive site which is a good 30 minutes boat ride away and it starts to pour.  I mean, POUR.  The boat starts to rock.  Instantly, everything is soaking wet.  The plus side of it is, I can now get into my wetsuit a lot easier!  We arrive at the dive site and us DMT's (Dive Master Trainees) decide to play a game of 'chasies' or hide and seek, girls vs guys.  Three vs four.  We jump down still in the rain and drop to 30 metres, where I get narked, chase some fish, guzzle air and proceed to hide away from the boys team. The end up finding us maybe 10 minutes later and then it's their turn to hide.  We come back up 36 minutes later and we're in the thick of the storm.  Rain pouring down, swimming hard to get back to the boat.  We climb aboard, change tanks, and I get out the oatmeal for a little warmup-pickme up.  Delicious.  Slowly other groups come up and the boat actually goes to pick them up it's storming so bad. Loud thunder and lightening.  Crazy rain.  Fifteen minutes later the storm has passed, it's hot and humid and we're on our way to the next site. And we do it all again.  

So I have been thrust into everything pretty quickly around here, hence the no updates on the blog.  It's also a bit of a pain to  lug my computer from my place down to the dive school (where there is wifi) every day to update (Sorry Dad!).  But, all is well and I am no longer sleeping in a dorm with 6 stinky guys.  

I had to settle on a place to stay at a dive resort, because I spent four days walking this island and came up with nothing.  Everyday I would walk down the paths looking for a bungalow, sweating in the heat, climbing hills.  And everyday they would say no, check back tomorrow! So I would and the cycle would repeat...either way, I settled for Asia Divers Resort. It's a bit pricier, and is just a room, alhtough a large one with bathroom and dresesr and tv and such.  It's quite nice. Less than ten minutes walk down to Big Blue (which is nice for those morning dives).  I'm happy there right now, but I will most likely move when my month is up. 

I'm head long into this course now and managed to narrowly avoid my swimming tests yesterday.  Luckily I got to fun dive instead.  The swimming test portion of all the tests is the one that is scaring me the most.  You're graded out of 5 marks, and have to swim 400 metres under 6 minutes for a 5 and so on....then there's the snorkeling test which is 800 metres, then towing another person (a tired diver) for another 100 or 200metres. Eek.  I'll take a few more sunrise hikes before I get those going! I did do the floating test and passed with 5 marks. Thank God. How embarrasing if I'd gotten less than that, and only had to float?!

I'm enjoying the program so far. It's going to be getting a lot more rigorous.  I just registered for a deep diving and a nitrox course and a wreck dive for the upcoming week and am excited about that!  Life is good here on Koh Tao. I've been gone now for a week, but it almost feels like I never left.  

The House Hunt

Okay, so I've been having problems posting here on this site. It doesn't ever seem to be working!

I've made it to Koh Tao now and am looking for a place to live long term.  I'm staying at Big Blue for a night or hopefully two (if I can convince them to let me stay) and have been out searching for bungalows and rooms.  Yesterday I looked at one in the middle of a coconut grove.  It was very nice, and fairly cheap, but very far away.  I don't want to rent a scooter and in order to make those 6:15am morning boat trips, I'd definitly have to leave the place around 5:40!  And I don't know if I want to do that.  So I'm looking for a place closer to town that I can zip back to if need be and one that won't be a pain in the ass to lug groceries and water too.  It's proving difficult with all of the ex full moon partiers on the island right now, everything is full.  Hopefully a friend will put me up if I become homeless in the next few hours!!  

It is great to be back here.  It's almost like I never left.  On Monday I have my DMT orientation and then will officially start the course.  I'm excited to get going!  The jet lag is slowly passing...although it is 6:40am right now.  There's no way I'd ever be up that early back home!  Soon, hopefully soon.

China Air, Almost There