Law papers and artsy shit....where's the biz?

Ok, it’s like February 26 and I haven’t posted a blog since February 18th!! What’s the world coming to? And the simple truth of the matter is that although I was busier when I was in Koh Tao on a daily basis, time simply seems to fly by here. On top of that, I seem to have more personal demands on my time then I felt in Koh Tao. Here, I have a pup who constantly wants to play relentless throw the ball, a missus who needs dropping off and picking up from work, friends who want to catch up…damn, things just flit by.

You know one of the things I really miss? The friggin’ moped. I think I want a moped for Toronto. Sure it can be icy, snowy and generally blah, but I miss the ability to zip around town (well, island, but hey, you’s gots to go with the flow). Plus, I’d be doing the environment a favour, right? Those little buggers are uber-efficient on gas consumption.

Anyway, need to win the lottery first. Need the cash. Damn, I thought I was going to win that 48 million last weekend….stupid 14 other people who beat me to the punch. My day will come, curse you, it’ll come!!

Talking of finances leads me onto work…..ahhhh, the game continues…..so many little things to work on, it seems that I constantly get lost in the trees due to an inability to see the woods…..

I also think that Peter and I are going to have a difference of opinion when it comes to website design. Originally, we were thinking of designing our own website, putting the rudimentary building blocks in place and then passing the project of to a web guru who could tidy things up a bit. I am now thinking that’s a silly buggers approach to the whole issue. As I see it, we do a bit of work online in trying to create a website and then pass it off to a techie who’ll end up telling us that they can’t work with what we have done and give us the product we are looking for. Which’ll mean that they will have to do all of the work over again.

So, I think we need to hire somebody to build the site from the ground up. We give them our ideas and absolutely necessary content and let them do the hard work. The shitty side of it all is that it’ll cost us.

The other problem is that Peter really likes this website: www.aquariusscuba.com, whereas I think it is simply too busy and, bluntly, too ugly. I want a website that is sleek, techno-cool and hip. I’m thinking minimalist on the opening page with links to the various pages that emerge from the page when you scroll over them. I am also thinking that having a super-fine and relevant video playing in the middle of the screen is a good eye catcher and will let people know they have hit diving Nirvana Toronto. But I also know that Peter can be a stubborn bugger, so there’s a little anticipation of fireworks on the horizon.

Now, I probably shouldn’t admit this, because it is likely to get the missus all up in arms, but I think I am a little blue right now about not being in Koh Tao and able to dive. I really really miss the heat and the water. It’s not even ridiculously cold here, but I am now hooked on getting out on a boat and into the deep blue. I feel like a fish out of water here in Toronto, even though I have my pup, my creature comforts and my missus. Anyway, there’s not much that can be done about it at the moment.

So what I should be doing is getting this business up and off the ground so that we can get clients and then get clients who want to go to the Caribbean, meaning I get to go down too to take them diving…..ahhh the hopes I have!! Except I can’t do much more than I have been until Peter gets back from his humungous honeymoon!!

And I need to stop getting sidetracked….an age-old issue of mine. I now have a couple of wicked good ideas for an artsy project I have been mulling over….but won’t reveal more until it becomes somewhat more of a reality. And on top of that, I have had an idea for a decent legal comparative law paper. Not sure if I could get it published, but I think I will research and write it anyway. It’s sort of related to my new field of employ as it is….a comparison in the applicability of liability waivers and releases in extreme sports. Every time you take a scuba course, you’re required to sign such a release, but really, what efficacy does such a document have? I know that for rugby it only provides a club or an association limited protection, so how much does it differ for sports like sky diving, scuba diving, bungee jumping, etc.?

I know, I know, I can hear you already….get focussed. I’m working on it….

Toronto: Music City

Ok, so here I am on the blog again because, damn, I need a break from writing goddamned shareholder agreements, updating contact lists and preparing marketing strategies. I have been at it for two days (ok, well small grey area definition on that one, it has been two days, but not two continuous days….in fact a couple of hours on two consecutive days….but hey, that’s a lot of work for a recovering three-month-on-a-tropical-island-learning-to-be-a-dive-instructor-kind-of-guy…make that Master Scuba Diver Trainer if you must) and feel like I need a nap already!! Man, I hate drafting shareholder agreements….me, the master of procrastination, I am when I hate something….ask the missus.

And to top it off, I am still a big girl’s blouse!! It still feels like I moved back to live in a fridge-freezer. What gives with the damned snow?! I thought it was going yesterday, now it is snowing like nuts outside of the window . Le big sigh. I really need to get going on franchising the travel side of this business, so that I can piss off to the Caribbean on a frequent basis to maintain my tan and body temperature. Ah, so glad to be home, yet missing my daily dose of diving like you wouldn’t believe. Yes, the travel agency has got to become a priority….out of the multitude of ideas and issues that befuddle me and need organizing….

So many ideas and thoughts, it’s a jumble in my pea-sized brain and trust me, there wasn’t a lot of room for much in the first place. I just need to try to get all of my thoughts down and then organize, but hey, this is me we’re talking about and sometimes organization and me go together like dog poop and ice cream (and some other times, amazingly, it all comes together for me like a cunning plan….just not this time and not right now…..right now I am all over the place).

If I could just get this shareholder’s agreement sorted, I think I can start making positive steps…..damn, then I have to deal with squaring away the marketing plan and contacts, making a strategy/formula on how to approach our targets with our concept and then, joy oh joy, start on a website.
Thank God Peter is away for a month….so much to do….and I have a sneaking suspicion that Peter and I are going to struggle a little over the website design…..I’m thinking sleek, conceptual and interactive (i.e. the info you need isn’t glaringly set out in minute detail on the main page, but pops up when you scroll over it sort of thing), whereas Peter basically wants to emulate the Aquarius Dive Shop website, which to me is simply too busy. I think a website that almost looks like a DVD menu and then expands when you want it to and where you want it to go is so much more sophisticated. That way too we can work in some sweet artistry, a little video and funkadelic music. We need to sell hip and sophisticated to our proposed clientele, not info overload on page 1.

Oh, and I may already have our first client….even if it is family!! And even if they are flying me to Texas to teach…..hey, s’cool, it’s going to be a paying gig!! Peter, I think I have our first little taste of income!! Damn, there goes our tax write-off for the year.


So, I had an interesting morning of watching a most officious and overly aggrandized proceeding this morning…..the Committee of Adjustments. We had to appear to get our renovation plans for the kitchen (well the increase of the footprint of the house) approved (Noé, you’ll be so happy to see our AGA when you finally get your skinny Swiss butt over here). Of course, even though I had to be there at 9 a.m., we were 9th on the list and so I had to watch eight other applications go through first. Simply ridiculous amount of people and tape to deal with for extremely simple applications. Sometimes I feel great having taken off my lawyer cap….especially watching a trumped up panel of nobodies acting as though they are the law in deciding whether someone can extend the back of their house by a metre and a half. Sheesh, it’s good to know our taxes go to having six people sit around to hear pointless submissions and decide that yes, Ahmed can build a shed on the side of his house.

Another wee observation I have since getting back….. my weight flip-
Flops like a muthafucker. I weighed myself when I got home last week…..I weighed in at 182lbs (yes, I know, fucked up, ain’t it, a year ago almost to the month, I weighed 226lbs). Well, then I weighed myself on Saturday morning and I came in at a whopping 176lbs. Where the hell did the 6lbs go? Fucked if I know. Now I weighed in today at 182lbs. All over the damn place. As the missus likes to advise me, I sound like an anorexic teenage girl (well, I certainly have the hips of one now….but you should see me in that little black number, I’m a stunner), but wtf (if you don’t know what that abbreviation stands for, face it, you’re old….yep, even older than fossil instructor-boy over here), it’s nuts.

I actually decided on the weekend that I am a little too skinny, so starting Monday I got back into training mode (hey, it is part of my job, people expect their instructor to be a toned, bronzed sexalific hunk, so I need to work it). Went for a run and then did half an hour of weights. Two days later and I am squealing like a pig that knows that Sunday breakfast is fast approaching. Damn…..how much can someone rip their muscle tissue? The amount of discomfort I am currently experiencing feels like my arms are sloughing off!!

Tomorrow, I face off again with pain central!! Thank God the running part is a piece of piss at the moment….I don’t think I’d get out of bed if my legs felt as jello-weak as my bloody arms.

Oh, one awesome piece of fantabulous news at being back (don’t get me wrong, I have already blogged about how nice it is to be back with family, friends and home, but this is a more generalized rant) is that there are some mega-awesome gigs coming up. No more listening to some Neanderthal from Oz trying his best to belt out “Sex is On Fire” in Chopper’s back on Koh Tao, I’m going to see the real deal!! Should be a great gig…..along with trying to get tickets to see the Weakerthans, Franz Ferdinand and the Great Lake Swimmers!! I would have loved to see Travis too, except unfortunately they are playing the same day as Kings. Dammit!! Ahhh it is good to be back in a city of culture. Even if the missus is likely cursing the fact that I want to go to gig after gig.

Oh and for my Kiwi followers….we’re off to see Flight of the Conchords in person too!! Awesomeness keeps on coming and coming.

Ok, gotta get back to a shareholder’s agreement…..I’ll fill you in more on my first paying gig when things firm up a little……

Wait a minute!!

Did I just completely fail to notice that it's Friday, the 13th??? Holy crap. Now wonder I feel out of things.....it all makes sense!! Oooo-er, maybe I shouldn't be going out for drinks tonight.

Did I also mention that I dropped to 182 pounds while I was away? That's the lightest I have been since I was a teenager.

I bet I pile the pounds on now I am back in the Western world. Who's up for a slice of pumpkin pie as the ante?

Ok, new blog, new day....

Ok. It is minus 4˚ celsius, with a wind chill making it feel as though it is minus 10˚. Basically, it is fucking freezing. Now I know you hardy Canadian types are thinking it is positively balmy and that father winter has given you a reprieve from the harsh realities of living in the damn tundra. That is because you are delusional and suffering from cabin fever. You are fucked up. It is not warm, it is sub-arctic. Wake the hell up.


It is so damn cold that I have been back for less than four days and my lips are already desiccated and screaming for mercy. Blistex simply isn't enough in these harsh conditions, 2000 year old mummies have better looking lips than mine (no, not your mummy, Lee, Eygptian mummy's.....like from your favourite film, Bubba HoTep).


And less than four days ago, I was also donning a hoodie if the temperature dropped into the mid to low-20's. Dammit, I was wearing shorts and t-shirts, not longjohns and fleecies.


I know, I know, wha wha wha, I can hear you, but damn what a transition. Don't get me wrong, I am actually overjoyed to be home. I have my girls, I have my house, I have decent coffee, I have my XBox. But, even so, there is a strange feeling I simply cannot accurately pin down. I think it is actually a mild form of culture shock. If you have read my blog from the beginning, you'll know how immense of a culture shock it was to move to Koh Tao and know it was semi-permanent for three months. It took a while to settle into it. Well, despite the fact that this is my home, I think I am experiencing a similar sensation upon my return.


I almost feel like an outsider (outside of my family and home that is) and that things aren't properly permanent yet. This might explain why it has taken me three days to fully unpack, do my laundry and start to think rationally again (screw jetlag, I was over that bitch in under a day, that's right, mofo's, I rock).


Right now, it is just me and the girl too, the missus is across the country in Banff. Must be nice (tongue in cheek, says the boy from the 3 month hiatus). This is possibly adding to my discombobulation, I am sort of at a loose end.


Ah well. I've got my gear stowed, I have my laundry finished and I have introduced fishermen's pants to my humble abode in T.O. Oh, and I have gotten visa to recognize that I am back home and that some crazy country-hopping jackass hasn't stolen my card. Finally got my cell phone back on track and dealt with three or four different institutions on hour-long phone calls to get my life back on track (seriously, these phone centres must only hire muppets these days, it is like pulling teeth to get anything sorted out....but I am likely preaching to the choir here, I am sure you have all dealt with dickhead spotty-faced punks in some call centre in the States or some highly educated, but pissy snob working in an out-sourced phone centre in Mumbai).


And it is the Family Day weekend (yeah, long weekend for my return).....so start on the business plan next week!!

Hey, does anybody have a sample screenplay that they can lend me???

Back to the Future

Sitting in the Thai Royal Silk Lounge (very comfy, I can tell you, away from all of the riffraff) and waiting for my flight to Beijing....that's right, Chris is heading home....I am about to go back in time and fly into the night I left behind.

Now, I am aware that the video footage didn't work from what I can tell by looking at the blog. I will try and rectify this when I get back to civilization and over my jetlag. Just so you are aware too, the blog will continue, however, rather than focusing on my time in Koh Tao, the blog will now concentrate on my efforts to get the Toronto Scuba Club up and going. It is highly likely that the blog will not be posted on a daily basis. While you may have felt that some of the posts from the current blog were really not all that informative or fun, trust me, you won't want to hear about the countless hours of research and document preparation that will go into this endeavour. I will be trying to add as much frivolity into the blog as possible though, as most of you know, I'm forever the clown.

Good last night in Thailand. After the hangover started wearing off from my last night in Koh Tao (about an hour into the katamaran ferry ride...through which I slept 90% of and which was incredibly smooth), we managed to get to the airport in Samui and into Bangkok relatively on time. The dive bag that I am trailing around now weighs about the same as a small baby elephant. Danielle and Heather were both leaving luggage at the airport while they continue their travels and so, the bag being my biggest hurdle, I left it and my rucksack at the airport and decided to carry the bare minimum into the City.

The hotel that the ladies had booked online was, um, how can I say this......dodgy as alll shit. They booked it on the recommendation of someone else, who, it turns out, has never been to the place. It was like some bad neon and garish flashback to the '70's. God it was nasty. We took some photos (below), but nothing can really put you there. Not unless you were a dirty bastard in the '70's picking up hookers and taking them to the grossest sleaze-bag motels you could find where cheesy magicians and singers performed in trashed-out lounges attached to the side of said scuzzy motel. It was hideous. In the restaurant there were big haunches of dried meat of some description hanging. The smell of the place was "musty" at best. Even the carnivore in our group was a little off-put by the scene and if you know Heather, you know she'd eat almost anything.

Danielle was begging us to switch hotels, but as we only had to be in the place for about 3 hours and because Heather had already paid for the place, we roughed it out. So, we jump in the hotel shuttle to take us from the restaurant to our room:

Seriously, this was how we got around the "hotel".

So, we got the fuck out of Dodge. After hiding the laptop under a bed, we took our passports and all other absolute essentials (iPod, cameras, cash, etc.) and made a run for it, in style:

First things first, food. Now I have been craving Indian for a little bit, so the girls agreed that said cuisine was tres cool (them having eaten Thai almost everyday for four days straight). I found a place in Danielle's guidebook. Guess I should have read the description a little better.....turns out it was a 100% vegetarian place that was also alcohol-free. Now this is almost as good as Heather's O'Douls story, but I think she still holds the title (when we were in Bermuda earlier this year....Lee, me and Heather...we sent Heather into a store to buy beer for the hotel. She returns with a bag of booze. When we get back to the hotel later that night, she cracks a beer and pulls a funny face. Then we look at what she has bought.....yep a six-pack of O'Douls....oh boy, did we get loaded that night!!). Anyway. the food was pretty good, so it turned out alright....Danielle is a veggie too, so no big deal for her for sure.

After that, we split for Kohsan Road and some last minute shopping before the market shut down....bear in mind, this is actually about 11:30 p.m. last night. Found some unstuffed Thai cushions, which was awesome, because now I can get them home easily. Not so much luck on the t-shirt front though. Ah well, can't win them all.

Then we decided to have a few moments of high-life living (damn, the pictures above don't really do justice to how seedy the hotel really was) and we popped off to a very very cool bar that sits on the 55th floor of one of the swankiest and tallest buildings in the city, Sky Bar.

Before you even think it, no we couldn't have afforded this place, even if all three of us pitched in.

It was now about 1:30 a.m. and we'd been going a long time, but Heather was adamant about trying to catch the ping-pong show while we were in Bangkok. Many of you may be thinking "ah, Pat Pong", but no, apparently the new place is Soi Cowboy (a street of debauchery and flesh). We head off in for a long long ride in a taxi where I think both Heather and I fell asleep. We finally reach Soi Cowboy only to find all the lights off. So, back to the Bates' Motel and three hours of unfitful sleep fully clothed so that the bed bugs literally didn't bite. Then we go the hell out as quickly as we could this morning.....as you can tell, Gaudette was overwhelmed with happiness:

....this is it....I am outta here in about 30 minutes.....see most of you back home....except in addition to the nasty tongue, I now also have a killer ear infection in my left ear....this should be a fun plane ride...

Finale

One final post before I leave Koh Tao. It's almost 2:00 p.m. and we're waiting for the ferry....so enough time for one last trip to Cafe del Sol and a pop across the road to use t'internet.

It has been a rough day. First, my farewell drinks last night didn't end until 4:30 a.m. And then I was up at 7:30 a.m.

It was good to see everybody one last time, damn, Jonas even came down to Easy to say bye!

I'm really going to miss all of the people I've come to love and care for here on Koh Tao, but I think I need to make a special final farewell shout to Noe, Celia and Tim and Natalie. Without you guys, this would have been a whole different experience. I am glad I got to know you and you know you are family now.

That sort of goes for everybody I know here though, if any of you are ever in Toronto, damn in the Caribbean!, just give the missus and me a shout. You know you can stay at our place in Toronto and if the business is going well (finger's crossed) hopefully we'll be able to see you in any of your dive locations...perhaps even work alongside you.

Huge memories and you're all a unique part of them.....

And although you can't read, although you can't speak, although you'll never know it, goodbye Red and Spot.....you're two very loving little guys and I am terribly sad to leave you behind. I wish it was easy enough to bring you home with me.

You know Lee loves you too and I think Bailey would be all over you.

And now, with a wee tear in my eye, farewell, Koh Tao, farewell.

I go now to my anchor in the storms (see you soon, Hon), my home and hearth and to reunite with my family.....

Laa Gon, Koh Tao

OH MY GOD!!! So, I’ll start with my last piece of daily news first. It being my last day on the island, Gaudette and Heather convinced me to climb the mountain with them to a view point called “Two Views”. There’s a “road” to get to the view point, but it’s a loose description at best. It is in fact better described as a former river gully that has dried out a bit, but then turned into slippy slippy gravel. It was a treacherous climb. The bike didn’t even make it a third of the way up. In fact, at one point I was walking faster than the bike was moving underneath me. And then it started giving out what can only be described as it’s death rattle and an acrid smell of burning motor hit my nostrils. It was at this point I decided to cut the engine and give the ol’ girl a rest.
The only problem was that we were halfway up a very steep incline. So DG and I ended up pushing the bike up a near vertical incline with its full weight on us. This road made the route up to Noé and Célia’s place look like a flat desert stretch. And the sun was baking us.

After abandoning the bike on the side of the road, we hiked up the gully for about 25 to 35 minutes. Damn it was hot. Damn it was steep. Damn we could have slipped to a jungly fugly death. So hot in fact that by the time we reached the top, it looked like I had pissed myself:

Honestly, it is not urine, DG can attest. It is almost as gross and it is a bunch of belly and chest sweat that ran in small torrents down my torso. Small fleas that took weeks to build their brand new houses on my belly button lost all their worldy possessions in one foul flood of Chris Sweat. Poor fuckers.

Anyway, despite the exhausting and perilous trek, the view was fantastic:

Only slightly soured by the fact that while we had trekked and trekked, when we got there, three guys were sitting there on their mopeds!! Anyway, I was simply sopping, as was DG:

In fact, I recorded how I felt.....(warning, expletive included....by the way, I am having difficulty uploading the two videos...if they are not here, sorry, I'll edit when I can....by the way, check the bottom of the blog too to see if they posted there):

Oh….and did I forget to mention, we lost Heather. Before we even started trekking. After abandoning the bike we waited, expecting Heather to be right behind us. We yelled, we waited, we yelled some more. There was no Landymore. You see, we had taken a brief wrong turn as a group before leaving the bike on the right road. And when we went on the right road, Heather must have turned back down the mountain instead of up.

We felt bad, but figured that as we had struggled to make it this far that we had to make it to the top. Of course, we didn’t realize that it meant a further half hour trek. But on the way down we felt bad for Landym and figured she’d be pissed, so we tried to apologize on digital celluloid (shut up, Steve Hoyles, I know that makes no sense):

Well, we’re now here in Café del Sol…..luckily we guessed right in that Heather would be waiting for us here, rather than back at Sunshine in a huff or in a crumpled heap halfway up some mountain. And the best bit is, she isn’t even grumpy, in fact, she has a beer in front of her. That’s right, Heather’s tanked.

Ok, now let’s rewind and fill you in on events from yesterday afternoon. We went diving yesterday on the afternoon Ban’s boat. The first dive was shit. We went to a place called Hin Wong pinnacle. It is on the far side of the island and fairly deep. We started going deep, but the viz was so bad, that at 25 metres it was like very cloudy chicken soup. Noé was leading. At which point we got separated. So it was Heather and me and we imagined DG and Noé (we didn’t know, because they were completely gone). I headed us up a bit to see if we could reach better viz, which we did. The other bad part of the dive was that as we had been following Noé, I hadn’t been taking any navigational headings at all. And I had never been to Hin Wong before either. So I just started heading south in the hope that Noé had started by heading north. All I can say is that there is a little bit of luck in me and a boot load of kick-arse diving skills. I got us back to the buoy line. In fact, I am so damn good that we still had time to dive for another twenty minutes and I ended up giving directions to other lost instructors and DM’s on how to get back to the boat.

The next dive was better, even though it was Twins (dived about 50 times or so now). We saw EVERYTHING except for a sea snake. It was awesome for the amount of marine life we saw. A good dive.

Then a quick clean up back on land, a little cricket on the beach with Jon and Ben, then a shower and meet the ladies for dinner. They initially wanted to surprise me by taking me to a cool restaurant they had been advised of…..Porto Bello’s. Well, I may have mentioned this previously in a blog, but I went there with the missus, Jon and James and Noé and Celia. And it was crap. So we went instead to Morava instead. It was pretty good. Then we walked down to Papa’s Tapas and enjoyed a couple of raspberry martinis. At this point, the ladies wanted badly to go to Queen’s, the island’s resident drag show. It wasn’t really all that, so DG and I got bored and headed over to Hippo’s for some apple crumble, leaving the Landym to soak up some lady-boy action. Then off to Nelly’s to say hi to Ben who was working there last night. In time for last call. Although I also found out by hitting Nelly’s that the Six Nations started yesterday!! Wales plays Scotland tonight!! I’ll have to see if I can convince people to head to Nelly’s or Choppers for a few beers at my farewell tonight….

Fairly late night, especially because we went diving this morning and had to be at Sunshine for 7 a.m. But the silliest thing happened last night, which, because it involved Heather, is probably to have been expected…..Heather decided to use the small basket on the front of her moped as a safe location to store her purse during transit. So on the way home at 12:30 a.m., her purse flew out somewhere between Mae Haad and Chalok. Luckily it only had money and her bank card in it. Yes, this is a pain in the bum for her, because now she cannot withdraw cash and she lost about 2,000baht, but at least she has her credit cards, passport, etc. We had to call Lee this morning to approve a cash advance for Heather to survive on. The missus and I had almost exactly the same phrase on our lips at almost exactly the same moment: “Ahhhh, Heather!!”

But she was still there for diving at 7:00 a.m. this morning. Great dives, even if they were Twins and White Rock (well, really, what more fitting dive sites could there be for my very last dives on Koh Tao? I mean, I know them so well, it was like saying goodbye to old friends). And I also used student gear today, because I have had my stuff drying out for a day to pack it all away. Euuuuuwwww, nasty. I had to wear two shorties in order to stay warm.

We went diving with German Chris and his ex-girlfriend. Nice people. Noé and Ben were also on the boat and both attempted a last friendly underwater farewell attack. Ben succeeded in getting one of my fins off, but then couldn’t escape because I had hold of his air tank…..he nicely surrendered the fin. Noé didn’t fare so well….he attacked and tried to grab mask, but I ended up with his fin and he with nothing. Off he went trying to lead a fun diver with only one fin. I relented and let him carry on. Here are some pics from getting ready and on the boat this morning:

One last item from today and then a parting observation. I am feeling quite sad about Red and Spot. Poor little buggers. They are on my porch every morning. I am leaving some food with Scott and with strict instructions to feed both of them, not just Red. I think they can sense my imminent departure….they were quite clingy this morning and stayed close by on the porch:

And so, my Koh Tao blog will either end with this post or with a final post tomorrow if I get a chance. As I mentioned, I will likely convert the blog to one concerning the start-up our Peter and my new business, but that will be after a very short hiatus.

Surprisingly, I am not quite melancholy right now, although I expect I will be either tomorrow or when I am mid-flight. It’s the end of a time. I am so excited to be getting home, but there is a little sadness to say farewell, evenif I know I could never keep a lifestyle like this up. Even if the missus and my pooch were here, it just doesn’t smack of permanency for me. But it was fun. It was a blast. I learnt a lot, I grew in some ways I didn’t expect and I saw some very bizarre and odd things from my regionalized and Westernized perspective. Still, a unique opportunity and one I will always remember.

We have the farewell tonight, then I head out tomorrow….One thing above all else I have learnt: if you have the love and support of a great woman, then try and realize your dreams while you still can.

Laa gòn, amigos…

....almost forgot!!.....

...I have some weird infectiony-thing on my tongue!!

And I finally downloaded some of my photos!! Here are my first ever open-water students!!

And here are the crazy twins:

And Noe and Celia talking to home....

And some of yours truly:

I am proficient, damn it!!

All in all a good day yesterday. I was awake early (as you may have noted from my blog) and a little fuzzy-headed from the shots and drinks from the night before. Despite feeling a tad out-of-kilter, I still met Heather and Danielle for 8:45ish. Of course, even though we had discussed this before, they were both passed out and so I ended up waiting for 20 minutes while they surfaced. We had agreed to meet early because I had a couple of errands I needed to take care of at Sairee and Ban’s before the dives. It seems that there was general miscommunication from all sides, however, because they had no recollection of agreeing to meet. They also had a recollection of me taking a crap in their room, which never occurred. The two of them swore silly that I had gone into their bathroom and left an awful stench. Now, Stone, don’t get grossed out, this story isn’t going where you think it is. Anyway, I finally convinced them I hadn’t taken a dump (which would just be completely bizarre), so then they were resolute that I must have farted in their bathroom. Which, in and of itself is nonsensical….how could a fart linger for hours?

The answer lies in the septic systems on this island. Their toilet was simply “over-flushed”. If you pour enough water into the toilets here (99% are not automatic-flush), they fully flush and drain the water out of the bowl entirely. This allows fetid air to come up through the toilet itself from the septic system. It really does stink. “Sulphur” is not an adequate enough word to describe the gagging smell. It takes a few hours to dissipate. Heather accepted this rationalization, however, I could still sense Danielle’s scepticism.

Which was prevalent on the dives too. I suppose it is natural that they simply trust other divers more than me, because they knew me from open water until now and because they know me quite well in a non-diving context. But it is somewhat disheartening when they willingly look to anyone else for diving advice or leadership rather than trust me.

The truth is that I am now a much better diver in all senses then the Chris they knew three months ago. Yet they can’t seem to accept that. After three months of learning the actual theory and mechanics of recreational diving and after three months of diving almost every day (and in relatively shit conditions on top), I think it is not too conceited to say that I am now an extremely good diver and know a lot more about diving than your average Joe. In fact, I would go a step further…..out of the entire group of people I know that have become recent instructors, I think that Noé and I were perhaps the two divers who learnt more of the intricacies of the academics of diving. This is no criticism of my fellow IDC’ers, because they are all also fantastic divers, but I know that the academics were not as thrilling to most of them. They know what they need to know to be instructors and they found out what they need to know to pass the IE’s, but I don’t think many of them have a burning desire to dig deeper.

I do. And I have also now completed the MSDT course, which provided me with additional information. Yet on the first dive yesterday, my “kith and kin”, so-to-speak, would barely accept a word I was saying (Heather was particularly sceptical about my knowledge of camera housings, despite having finished the underwater digital photography instructor specialty about 6 days ago) and Danielle swam off after Noé at the drop of a pin once we descended.

Overall, it was actually a fairly good dive at Chumphon (although the visibility was a bit poor due to the thermocline, yet again). By the end of the dive, Heather was following me (although I am not entirely sure if it was because she was starting to trust me or if it was due to Landym’s tendency to lag behind any group she dives with), but Danielle was still off chasing Noé. But then he ascended, so she was stuck with me. And I got them back to the line and the ladder at the back of the boat.

Still, I was a tad grumpy when we were back on the boat. I think they could tell, but hey, I didn’t just spend three months training for my friends to think I don’t know jack-shit.

The next dive (despite being at oh-so-exciting White Rock) I think they felt bad, because they followed my lead throughout. In fact, I think Noé also felt like they should give me more of a nod of recognition (thanks, Dude), because he purposefully hung back. The viz was far better at White Rock and we simply saw tons of shit. And my camera knowledge got a ton of better shots for Heather than the previous dive.

I think by the end of the diving yesterday, they were beginning to believe that I may have picked up some dive knowledge….I’ll have to work on it some more today.

Then we had a nice cheap dinner at Buddha View (ahhhh, baked potato and salad, my dinner of yore), because we needed some cash for the evening’s main event…..the BEER PONG SPECTACULAR. I didn’t have my camera, but I think Danielle did, so when I get the chance, I will try and post some pics.

It went very well….I even managed to find real ping pong balls yesterday morning in Mae Haad. Unfortunately, Tim and I got wiped out in the first game, which was especially bad for me, because I had agreed to drink half of Tim’s drinks as he is teaching the IDC right now. Still, great time….loads turned up, Jon, Noé, Célia, Tim, Nat, Ben, Emily, Mark, Alice, Scott, Mo, Leor, German Chris and his friend, Devon….a bunch. In fact, so many that a second beer run was needed. I think everyone had a good time….all I know is, as expected, I ended up at the pancake stand again at the end of the night with Noé, Célia, Heather and Danielle….followed by cheese toasties.

Good times. Although I am now only scant days away from the end of the sabbatical and thus the end of the Chris in Koh Tao blog…….

…hmmmm, perhaps the blog will change to Chris Starts a Company……..

OWSI/MSDT and outta here

I’ve done it!! It’s complete. You are now reading the blog of an OWSI / MSDT instructor. It won’t be official until PADI has processed the 32 certifications I procured over five days, but I’ve done my part. Peter, mate, the game’s afoot.

So no more work for me, it’s all fun dives and wrapping things up for the next few days for me. I actually am getting a little nervous in getting all of the little things I need to do sorted out, because I am diving every afternoon and there seem to be drinking engagements every night for the next three nights. Plus I have the hardest thing of all to face over the next day or so…..packing!! It’s going to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. I may even beg off diving on the last day here, just so that I can dry my gear properly before it gets packed away for four days of travel.

Outside of now being one of the best instructors you’ll ever meet in diving (the others, of course, being Peter and Tim), not much else to report on for the last day…..although today is my first full day of Heather! This could be interesting.

Yesterday was actually the easiest teaching day of all….the students all chose the underwater digital photography and naturalist electives (with some heavy prompting from the other instructor, Rich, because he doesn’t have to do much for the courses and because he gets to rent the cameras for 2,000baht a pop). Basically, we teach them about the differences of using a camera underwater and how to get better composition and positioning, etc., then let them go off for their 4 & 5 dives. Rich and I went for a fun dive off to a hidden pinnacle away from the dive site while the students mucked around.

Then the second dive I went down with a couple of the students because one of the guys was a little heavy on his air. But then we were done. A free dinner at Ban’s to finish their logbooks and then I was done…..and knackered…

Off to meet Danielle and Heather and it was just the three of us for drinks….and guess what, Heather was tanked.

No surprise there, eh?

Damn, keep on getting distracted while I am writing this. Anyway, I have to go deal with some paperwork before I dive this afternoon….if I get a chance I will try and fill in some more details this afternoon, but nothing really happening thus far. Tonight, however, it’s another night of beer pong….so it could get ugly….

Fuck you, Castle Party

OK, my first attempt at a real blog worthy of the Williams name today. It’s been a few hectic days of non-stop action on ol’ Koh Tao. The open water course, as I have mentioned, ended with me getting somewhat rat-arsed. This was unfortunately the night before I helped an instructor out with his confined session and then was on to another open water dives 3 & 4 that afternoon. It was a long day. Followed by an even longer day yesterday. A good old three dive day…which in and of itself is a tiring experience….nicely enhanced for me because of the FUCKING KOREANS!!

Yes, two days later and I am still willing to start war with Korea. It’s the day before the Castle Party and I finally am home somewhat early enough (midnight) to make the most of a night’s sleep (relatively, because I have only slept complete through the night once since I have been here and I was loaded, exhausted and on sleeping pills that one time). The lights go off and your’s truly descends into a mesmerizing and calm deep sleep…..only to be awoken at 2:00 a.m. by dudes yelling to each other across the housing complex in Korean. Chez Chris is perched on stilts at the end of all of the other houses, above a small dirt road and above the parking area. Now, it was clear that these guys weren’t fighting, in fact the tone was totally jolly and conversational….except that one of the guys was by the bikes and the other was on his porch, which is next door to mine. The yelling goes on for twenty minutes and sets all of the dogs in da ‘hood off, including my little bundles of fun on the porch.

So from absolute solitude for the first time in days to bedlam. Oh, was I a happy camper….

Now, I live in an apartment complex where there is a castle party every two weeks, where dogs decide to have gang wars every couple of nights, where dive industry dudes get up and talk/play music/fart at 6:00 a.m., where cockerels think its all shits and giggles to start their morning chorus at 4:00 a.m., where you can here most grunts and groans of any couple having sex from five houses away. It’s noisy. I have come to accept that. So, I am a fair neighbour and I let them make their noise for 45 mins……then politely went outside and advised them that there was a castle party and I’d like to have a decent night’s sleep.
They apologized.

And then carried on making a cacophony for another 45 minutes.
At which point, I am afraid I lost it. The door slammed open, scaring the shit out of Red and Spot and out comes raging Chris: “SHUT THE FUCK UP!!”

It went quiet a minute later.

Still, two and a half hours sleep before a three dive day….not so good.

And Landymore arrived. And she’s tanked. It is now 10:25 and I am supposed to be meeting the students for the last day of their advanced. I guess I’ll be a few minutes late, as we have to wait for her moped to be ready. So a quick coffee at Café del Sol.

Oh oh oh oh, and I missed the Castle Party!!! Gaudette switched rooms yesterday, so she had the two beds in her room (hers and Heather's). But Heather didn't get here until today, so free bed!! And no damn all night music. Sorry that I grimed your side of the bed, Landym.....

And the next few days promise a lot of scheduling. The next three days are definitely afternoon fun dives at Sunshine for the three of us, although Landym is looking to dive in the mornings too. While I still have a love of diving, I am almost at the point of physical exhaustion, so I think I will only be afternoons….

And there are three nights of farewells to have too. Tomorrow night is beer pong 2 at Sunshine, the night after that people have surreptitiously mentioned to be free and the last night there is a message on the Sunshine board for people to turn up at Easy at 7:30. I think I will want to sleep for a week.

But then I know I won’t….despite the fun I have had here, I am so damn excited to be seeing my girls and my house and my scene once more…..only a few more sleeps.

On side notes: Red has a cut on his back now, which has been iodized and seems to be scabbing nicely (I know you were dying to know about that); Spot has taken to burying her treats…..unfortunately in the construction workers’ sand pile, so I don’t know how many of them she actually gets to eat; and, I am fairly sure that one of the spiders in my room is preggo, at least she is three times the size of the other now in the belly….I am praying I don’t have to deal with hundreds of baby spiders before I leave….

Anyway, must run…..last two dives for my advanced students, plus I am being given certs from another instructor…so by the end of today I will have between 27 and 32 certs!! Awesome……

Blog likely tomorrow

The actual blog for today will likely be merged into tomorrow's blog, due to the fact I am about to head out on the afternoon boat, then also go out for a night dive....

One item I can report on briefly here is that my Sunshine guys are very upset with me. They just walked past me to go back to Sunshine from the morning boat and have accused me of becoming a Ban's man!! This will have to be rectified, but unfortunately, I can do nothing until tomorrow!!

I promise to do all of my fun dives with Heather and Danielle through Sunshine!!

Laters.....

Fornicating spiders and sordid certs

Just a brief blog this evening seeing as I already blogged this morning. Not much to report other than the fact that I have decidely become a certs slut. 17 certs in three days and the rest completed two days from now.

I didn't really know the students I certified today, which oddly makes me feel ind of sordid. Sure I ran them through some of the skills and I was there on their last dive but I wasn't really part of it so it felt strange.

At least with advanced starting tomorrow, it is the same students that I certified as open water's yesterday, so it feels like a natural progression.

Despite feeling dirty, I am still going to take advantage of free food in about five minutes when I go for a brief celebration with the open water students I certified today (read free nosh is all I am here for).

The only other news of note today is that Tim and Natalie are now back from Cambodia and back in the land of the living (they got here yesterday, but only surfaced today) and that the two spiders in my room have now taken to co-habiting the same space. I am desperately hoping that this doesn't mean they are thinking of making babies.....

Open Water Headaches

Hung over to nine levels of hell. And the “privilege” only cost me 120baht ($5). After I finished the open water course yesterday, I ran around finishing off paperwork and then shot home fast for a shower. As soon as I got back, a Dutch couple from the course bought me a beer. So I clinked bottles and drank away. To be nice, I reciprocated the gesture. Because, however, I am now an “instructor”, a load of little doors have opened up at the Ban’s bar that never existed before. Usually three beers should cost me the price of three beers. But as I was buying beer for students, suddenly I was only paying partial price for one. Ok, two in.

Three or four beers later, after they have been bought for me by the two German guys, the English guy and the guy from Saskatchewan, we sit down for a bite to eat. Which is where I discover the next secret……as an open water instructor, eating with his students, I also get my food for free. The new rules simply changed everything. Before you know it, I have bought a couple of beers for the Germans and the Saskatchewan kid and then I’m getting beers given to me from all quarters. I had no intention of getting drunk, really, because I am doing open water dives 3 & 4 again this afternoon with another group.

As it is, I end up having drunk far more than I wanted to and now I am a little in rough shape. I still have three hours though, so I am relatively confident I can shake it by then. I also never ended up saying “Hi” to Danielle yesterday (except across a dive site with a wave of my hand), but when it reached 1:30 a.m. it became a bit of a non-factor. The worst part was that every time I made a move to leave, the buggers had orchestrated that a new beer arrived in my hand. It was principally motivated by the Germans and the Dutch, but it reached a point where they thrust a Jaeger bomb in my direction. You’ll be amazed to hear that I managed to decline that one….what is it with people loving that shit? It’s about as guaranteed to fuck me up as tequila shots. Oh and the Canadian girls from Toronto (half price with the certified student stamp), so Rich (the Ban’s instructor I taught with) and I also were asked to participate in drinking some of those (not in the same way as Jaeger, but these buckets are kind of a gross concept too). I think you have the picture….too much booze.

The good news is that 10 out of 11 of my open water students are also going to do their advanced starting tomorrow. The other one is coming out on the boat because he wants to do it, but says he is broke. I have a feeling that he’ll join in anyway. So with the 6 certs I will get today and then the 10 advanced’s I’ll get in two days from now, I’ll have my 25 certs all done.

The open water dives 3 & 4 from yesterday actually went very well, with only one exception, when one of the students in my group (not Rich’s) had major issues equalizing. I sent the DM up to bring her down really slowly (like I had shown him on the previous dive and then explained on the surface), but they drifted away from the line and floated up. They were about five feet from the bow of the boat when I yanked them back to the line. Other than that, 3 & 4 went down fine…..even the CESA, which is probably one of the harder open water skills owing to current.

So, on to today…..but even if there are celebrations with this group after their certification, I’m sad to say I’ll not be a big part of it…..

No Time tonight

Sorry guys, just finished with my students for the water, but gotta be back to meet them at 7:30....so, blog tomorrow.....

Yes!!! One more Frigging Castle Party!!

The potential issue I had that might have arisen, has been resolved and it only cost me $35. So, not too much fire, just a lot of smoke. Basically, someone cut a line somewhere and I was there and didn’t stop it, so they thought that I should accept a portion of the blame. I disagreed, but told them to find out the costs that were going to be bandied about. Turns out it wasn’t that much, so rather than lose a friendship over levels of liability, I settled. I’ll just steer clear of Starbucks and Manic for the first week that I am back in T.O.

And I had my first students completely under my control and looking to me for direction in the open water today. As Peter would probably say “yeah, but they’re a bunch of c**ts, so fuck ‘em.” I felt like I should be wearing one of those slapstraps saying “Don’t follow me, I’m lost too”, but I braced for impact and started down the line with my little hatchlings. Well, once we got down the line and started doing the skills, it just all kicked in. No problems really. Sure, a couple of them are probably c**ts, but they behaved underwater and we got through in one piece, so whatev’s. I actually like a few of them, even though the average age is probably 23. I suppose it helps that there are five Canadians on the course (four from Toronto), a Brit, an Irishman and a Dutch couple and a German who speak pretty good English. The other German’s English is shite….like what the fuck man, these fucking Europeans should learn that English IS the universal language.

My only problem on both of the open water dives was that on the first dive, one of the students (not pointing him out, but all I’ll say is tiocfaidh ar la), when we began the ascent decided that 18m/minute was too slow a pace and hit the surface going about 35m/min. I’m afraid I had to ream him out a bit. What actually pissed me off, was that I put one of the DMT’s on him specifically, because he was looking a bit flustered (he’d had problems doing the swim test in the pool) and because he had also had a bit of an odd body position on the swim. The DMT totally didn’t stay near him and didn’t catch him as he shot to the surface like a bullet. Luckily, it was only 10m (although most DCI – Decompression Illness – injuries occur in the first 10m of water) and we hadn’t been down any deeper than 12m and only 25 minutes, so nothing happened. Still, I had a brief quiet “yell” at him, then had them all do a few more surface skills.

After that, everything went fine…..by the second dive almost everyone had gotten their buoyancy down pat and were swimming in pretty little flat profiles.

Yes, Chris rocks the scuba world! And then we had an afternoon classroom session and the chicklings sat their final exam. Here are my chigden working hard:

Oh, what I forgot to mention is that the morning could have been a lot worse…..I may or may not have had a couple more than 2 beers last night. Danielle and I went down to Ban’s for Aussie Andy’s DM snorkel test. Danielle had her first bucket:

And then Noé and Célia turned up, along with Mo, Pierre, Alex and half of the DM’s/Insructors/IDC candidates that I have gotten to know over the last few months. So drinks started flowing (luckily I only had to pay for two beers, however)….I know, I felt all moochie, but people kept giving me beers. And then the snorkel test began. Andy was joined by another friend of ours, Elena. The worst part is that her husband was the one who sold her out that she hadn’t done her snorkel previously. Here’s a few shots of Andy and Elena doing their snorkels:

Oh, and the aftermath for Elena:

And then, being a little tipsy, I decided it was time for Blue Steel Chris. Here’s a menagerie of Chris and friends all being tipsy and acting like willy-heads:

Oh…and then Noé insisted I kiss him, like the German guy kissed me two months ago after his IE (I didn’t mention this?? Oh, maybe because of the trauma….in any event, a dude kissed me on the lips when I turned around at Lotus bar one night. He was under the impression that he could have my beer, because he had just kissed a woman called Karen for hers. It worked. I gave him my beer to get away. Funnily enough, he is actually a cool guy, totally straight and was on my MSDT. He is currently trying to get in tight with a Canadian girl from B.C. and move to Canada, but still…the kiss haunts me and Noé and Célia love to wind me up about it). So, anyhooooow, I kissed Noé:

And then Célia insisted on the same treatment:

Don't go getting all jealous on my ass, Lee, I kissed both the boy AND the girl!!

A crazy night, which actually ended quite early (about 11:30) and I was in bed after a wee call to the missus. Didn’t even have the remotest hint of a hangover this morning. And at least my temporary puppies were behaving this morning:

And I am now set for a fucked up schedule for the next few days. Tomorrow, I assist one guy in a confined session with 10 students in the morning (8:00 a.m.). Then I meet Rich (the instructor I am running the open water with) at 11:30, after which we go for the o/w training dives 3 & 4 and I certify my first O/W students. Then I go to the Ban’s pool party to celebrate my student’s successful completion of their course. On the next day, I go on another set of O/W training dives 3 & 4 with another instructor and get the certs. (11 students). Then I start an advanced (again with Rich and the students from the current O/W) on the Wednesday, finishing on the Thursday. In the meantime, I have been asked if I can co-ordinate my timing with another instructor to assist him on his O/W. Oy vey. It looks like I may have my 25 certs by the 5th!!!

But……OH MY GOD!!! Just when I thought I had seen the last of my Castle Party days, the fuckers go and throw one more on before I can get out of here!! Feb. 4 is another FUCKING CASTLE PARTY!! And the worst part is that it is the night before Mademoiselle Alcohol arrives to fuck me up every night on booze…..so there I’ll be all knackered and not in the mood and she’ll be wanting to party party party. Damn.