A Damn Near Perfect Day

Well folks, after what is close to two weeks a day without really too much if any drama.

Figure out the way around the rocky headlands to the dive office – CHECK

Connect with my friend Sophie – CHECK

A cooler (85) day – CHECK

Calm seas – CHECK

Lobster dinner with new friends without running all over the island (Stu and Gino you know what I’m talking about!) – CHECK

Gorgeous night with drinks on the beach – CHECK

So all in all, not a lot of narrative to provide other than that. The only upseting thing to me the entire day was my second dive of the day. Again we were at Sail Rock, which was just fine by me. I dove with Lee today as Sophie has students to teach on land. First dive was magnificent. Second dive, I am really starting to hit my stride of breath control after some conversation with the dive instructors who dive literally every day. But as a result I’m a bit overweighted which means that my boyancy control was kind of crap for me.. still not that bad, but I was not happy with my execution there. Also as a result I actually for the first time ever disturbed marine life by touching it… unfortunately for me it happened to be a sea urchin so I left with a little spine in my thumb.. This actually upset me more than anything and caused my air consumption to go too fast. Then for some reason I reset the setings on my camera and the second half of my dive none of my pictures really came out. I was able to salvage some of them with some significant editing of the RAW files but oh well, I have what I saw in the minds eye which to me is more memorable anyway.

So without further ado, my dive pics for the day:

Afterr the dive it was back to to the hotel afterr picking up my laundry from the dive office. But before I could head back I decide to check the pharmacy across the street to see if they knew where I could get a COVID test for flying. You see, my original ticket on Delta/Korean Air was DTW-ICN. I however then changed the ticket to be DTW-ICN, BKK-DTW. And in between those two I have a roundrip on Korean air ICN-BKK-ICN. This is where the problem lies. As my trip to the US and my trip between Korea and Thailand are not on the same itinerary, Korean air will not give me a boarding pass to Korea unless I have a COVID test despite the fact that I am not leaving the airport and actually entering their country.

Well the pharmacy was of no help, which frankly I expected but it was worth a try since it was directly across the street. But to go in I had to take off my shoes as is custom in many many Thail establishments. I then proceeded to start back to my hotel. I got about 800 meters away and realized I did not have my shoes. Now at this point I have my backpack again with my camera equipment, but now I also have ALL of my clean clothes so the thing is getting heavy again. Back I go. Sweat I do. I pick up my shoes and head for home. SQUIRREL.. I get distracted by a mini mart that has hats hanging on the rack. So again I set my shoes and bag down to walk in and look and also possibly buy a coke light (that diet coke). The hats were nothing more than crap on a shelf so I headed off for home. This time I got about 3/4 of a mile down the beach and realized.. you guessed it. I left my shoes at the mini-mart. This time I get to walk back through the beach sand .. fun.. Finally shoes in hand I head back toward the hotel.

It is here that I run into my German friends Sandra and Marius whom I met on the ferry ride over for Koh Samui. We had agreed to meet for dinner and drinks tonight. Well I was supposed to have dinner with Sophie tonight so I told them there may be one more but I had to go back to the hotel and clean up and change as I was grungy from sweat and sea after diving all day and chasing my shoes around.

Back to the hotel, a glorious shower, even more glorious clean clothes (especially the drawers!) and I plop down in my AC to work on checking out and editing my pictures. I get a WhatsApp message from Sophie about an hour later saying she just then got off work and was heading home and could we have dinner tomorrow. Not a problem, I have my German friends to go meet. So I ping them and they tell me they are on the beach having a drink but happy hour ends at 7 and I’d better get a move on LOL. So out the door I go, I scoot through the rocks, down the beach and meet them at a table right on the sand seaside.

Well they’ve eaten but I haven’t so on the menu is Thai style lobster at a rediculous price but damnit if as soon as I saw it I couldn’t get my mind off of it. I’m talking US prices here folks. But what the hell, its my 2nd to last night and I’m in a perfect location on a perfect day.. lets go for it!

Needless to say I was definitely not disappointed. In a garlic pepper sauce. I mean it was no fried grouper with sweet and spicy sauce on Koh Phi Phi for $8 (where I ate two of them at that price) but it was a damn close second choice.

After dinner we sat and chat while we listened to a live Thai guitar player, playing some really easy listening versions of the Eagles, John Denver, Captian and Tenille, Clapton, you get the picture. The guy was actually very very talented but the arrangments were definitely right out of an elevator Musiak soundtrack.

Thankfully I grabbed my headlamp out of my bag before I left as the night was BLACK and the moon almost gone. So I had a safe trip back to my room. Finished editing these photos and crashed out hard.

Tomorrow (today) is my last full day on the island and my last day of diving. I miss everyone at home but I want to keep diving but I want to be home as well. Ahhhh the sweet strugles of traveling.

More latter my kiddies.