To start with, a spoiler. We did not see a turtle whilst on turtle island. Apparently the name originates more from the shape of the island rather than an abundance of turtles. We set off very early from Ao Nang to get to Koh Tao. Our journey involved a minibus to Krabi town, then a bus to Donsak pier and then a ferry to Koh Tao, which stopped at Koh Samui, then Koh Phangan and then finally, Koh Tao. From start to finish, the journey took us about 8 hours. Not too bad really.

My first impression of Koh Tao was that it was raining firstly (luckily only a little bit) and secondly that it was far more developed than I expected. The entire pier area was full of bars, dive shops and restaurants. For those of you that don’t know, Koh Tao issues more Open Water PADI diving qualifications than any other place in the world. It’s become a bucket list tick to get your open water diving qualification here. As Koh Tao is a nursery ground for new divers, we decided Simon and I were only going to do 2 dives whilst here and Loveday and Joe were going to do 4.

We made it to our hotel, which was very flash. For the first time in a long time, we had a pool and we didn’t hesitate to go and have a play. Simon and Joe decided to be toddlers and spent a good hour jumping in, high fiving as they jumped in, karate kicking balls and playing piggy in the middle. It was exactly what we all needed after that long journey. After a shower and a change, we walked down to the main pier area as it was time to finally meet up with Jamie and Leigh! Jamie and Leigh had been in Thailand for a few days by this point and had explored Bangkok and Kanchanaburi, where they spent some time at an elephant sanctuary. It was so great to be reunited with this guys and soon the months that we had been away vanished just like when Loveday and Joe showed up.

As a group we found some tasty Thai food for dinner and then walked along Sairee beach (the main backpacker area) to the Lotus bar. Visiting a fire show had been top of my list for a long time and we are so glad we saved it for when everyone was together. It had been Leigh’s birthday the day before so we celebrated, drank buckets of Thai whisky and peach iced tea, drank Chang, danced a lot, got painted with neon paint, limboed under fire, skipped with a fire skipping rope and just had a huge amount of fun. It’s funny really, because when Simon and I first watched videos of fire shows about a year ago, we said we would NEVER limbo or skip with fire. Funny how things change. It was completely safe though, I think.

We made it back at about 1am after having to walk a very long way to find a taxi. We had quite a few dogs walking with us and decided to call each of them rabies. It made the walk home pretty funny! The dogs are so friendly here and I’m sure hardly any of them have rabies. I think they were walking us home, acting as escorts, to ensure we were deposited safely at the taxi rank.

The next day was a relax kind of day. Simon and I were feeling pretty fresh actually, but some people were feeling the affects from the night before. No comment there. We headed down to the South part of the island, after a very much needed fry up, and laid on the beach at Chalok Baan Kaok bay. It was our first really good weather day in a long time, so lying on a beach and taking the occasional swim was exactly what we all needed.

My ear was playing up a bit that evening, and Loveday was having some irritation in her eyes so we decided to stay close for dinner, again local food, which was really tasty.

On our last full day we were all splitting up. Loveday and Joe headed out to do 2 dives at a site called Sail Rock, Leigh and Jamie went to do a discover scuba diver experience at some dive sites closer to the island and Simon and I had a lie in, had some breakfast, did some blog bits, did some lifemin (life admin) and not a lot else. Loveday and Joe came back at about 2pm and we all headed down to the pool to catch some rays and go for a swim. We figured we weren’t going to get much more time to just relax and not do a lot (we did do a lot of lifemin though, but not telling you about that yet) so we aren’t even ashamed to not have done a lot. The other reason we didn’t do much was because of my stupid ear. It was feeling better, but it still wasn’t right. Initially we planned to do a days snorkelling around the island, but we decided that we would probably be disappointed and that a day of rest would be better, as it would hopefully mean I could dive the next day.

We met at a pub called Safety stop (compulsory after every dive) that evening and had another lovely meal and a catch up on the days events with everyone. It was so lovely to see each other so much after so long apart and just showed us how much we had really been missing our friends and family.

The next morning our alarm went off at 4.45am. Yes I know, horrific! The reason why isn’t so horrific though. Loveday, Joe, Simon and I were going diving! 2 early morning dives and back to land by 10.30am. I had been adamant that if we dived in Koh Tao it would be to a site called Chumphon Pinnacle. I knew the likelihood of seeing a whale shark was very slim, but this place was meant to be a good site regardless of whether you see them and there had been sightings recently. I will admit it now, I was secretly hopeful. The dive company we used was called Scuba shack and we chose it because a tout had been really really helpful on our ferry to Koh Tao a few days before. Email replies had also been quick and friendly and they could go to Chumphon on that day. We are so glad we went with them. Our dive master, Max, was brilliant and very friendly. He was happy to tailor our dive to suit us and that’s exactly what he did when the BEST THING EVER happened.

On our liveaboard in the Similan islands, Ana, our guide, taught us a trick. Cross your fingers, on both hands, lick your fingers and then touch your nipples (through your wetsuit of course). This is the internationally, all species recognised sign for please show us some big fish. Last time we did it, we saw a manta ray. We taught Max this, and within 90 seconds of starting our decent we saw him… a 4-5m whale shark. He was the most beautiful fish I had ever seen under the water. The next 45 minutes of our dive (they only gave us 180 – 200 bar of air) was spent watching Maximus (this is the name we gave him). Our guide attempted to point out barracuda, there were loads, and other interesting species, but our eyes were completely for the whale shark. It still hasn’t really sunk in that we actually saw the largest species of fish on the planet. He was huge, but by no means the largest whale shark, with the largest ever recorded being 12.2m. He loved swimming through the divers bubbles and was followed by an entourage of other fish. At times we swam straight up towards us and over our heads. Honestly, the video footage we have is unbelievable. At the beginning of the dive we were the first dive group with him and by the end there were at least 50 divers in the water. Back on the surface the atmosphere was ELECTRIC! Every head that came up from a dive was screaming ‘WOW that was amazing!’ We were all buzzing for days. I’m still buzzing now from the experience.

We had our surface interval break and got back in before it got too chaotic again. Max had asked our skipper to stay at this site for another dive rather than move on to another. See how amazing he was? This time we did actually follow the plan a bit more and saw some more of Chumphon pinnacle. As Maximus the whale shark swam passed we enjoyed him, but kept with our plan knowing we would see him again. We saw so many barracuda, including some massive great barracuda, a tiny yellow boxfish, huge shoals of fusiliers and some unbelievably massive groupers. Maximus was probably with us for about 10-15 minutes of that dive and again, he was loving the divers bubbles and came very close at times. He was loving the attention. We even joked later on that when all the divers left he probably was sad that his fan club had left.

We were back on shore by 10.30am and I couldn’t have thought of a better way to spend a morning. Just magical! I’m grinning from ear to ear just thinking about it. We went back to the dive shop, got celebratory team Scuba shack tshirts to remember the moment, filled in our log books and went back to the Safety Stop restaurant to watch our videos and compare photos. Leigh and Jamie joined up with us and we tried to not talk about what happened too much. We went for a look in some of the shops and then headed to the pier to get our ferry down to Koh Samui for the next 3 nights. Koh Tao, you have been amazing! I would definitely come back and I would definitely do more diving around Koh Tao. My initial worries about trainee divers being everywhere was partially true. There were a lot who didn’t know what they were doing, but I think if you go with the right dive shop, like we did, and pick your sites well, there is a lot to explore around Koh Tao. We will be back. 🙂