Certified Open Water Diver

Did two more dives this morning and passed my final exam. I'm now a certified Open Water Diver, which means I can go to a depth of 18meters during the daytime. If i wanted to do an advanced course for 2 days I could get advanced certification and go to 30 meters during day or night (all with a dive master along).

On the dives today we saw another sea turtle briefly, then saw a banded sea snake that I later learned is the deadliest snake on the planet...very colorful, i stayed away.

I'm thinking of leaving this island tomorrow, the beach is kind of boring without any friends around. Would love to keep scuba diving, but at about $25 per dive I can't really afford it for long. Not sure where i'm heading yet...maybe malaysia, or singapore then back up through malaysia.

Calculated some of my trip's finances today, it has been a month since i left and just wanted to see how i'm doing. So far I've made $1252 in ATM withdrawals and have about $100 in cash. So i've spent $1152 in 30 days, about $38 a day, which includes the dive course of $250 and a $120 plane flight from Bangkok to the islands. Minus those unusual large expenses i'm right in line with where i wanted to be at for the trip, around $27/$28 a day.

finally uploaded some pictures...

koh phangan fire twirler...fun to watch, they're all over the beach at night

sunset on the beach we stayed at on Koh Phangan

View from our pool area...

Sunset on Koh Tao here...the sunsets here are amazing and the main beach faces toward the sunset...plenty of people at the bars every night just hanging out drinking a beer watching the sunset

more sunset here...

first night i was here there was a diver doing his snorkel test...i think they need 100 dives to be a dive master, the other divers on the 99th dive give you a snorkle test where they put a snorkel in your mouth and goggles over your nose/eyes...you can't beath except through the snorkel. Then the pour whatever they want down the snorkel for about a minute. fun to watch