Beneath The Waves

I'm always impressed by the teamwork of ants but the co-operation going on under the sea is just incredible - we humans think we're so superior on this planet but I'm less and less convinced!

We escaped the smog of Bangkok to arrive on Koh Tao - fairly touristy as expected but let's face it, if something has become touristy there is normally a good reason, and the diving here really is something else. Having been very unsure as to how I would take to scuba diving, I think we're both surprised to find ourselves totally addicted in just 6 days! We were originally planning to just do our Open Water certification and then head to Railay for some rock climbing, but decided as we live within an hour of some of the best rock climbing in the UK but hundreds of miles away from this kind of diving, it would make more sense to stick to the diving a bit longer.

The only frustrating thing is that I haven't tried this until now! It is such an amazingly different and beautiful world under the sea. I imagine we have been spoilt doing our first dives here, but we won't be letting that stop us! There have been so many favourite moments and so much to take in over these last few days but some things that really stand out are our very close encounters with clown fish, sharks and banner fish, and watching the mutualism that goes on between totally different organisms - the goby fish standing guard over the holes of the burrowing shrimp so that one provides protection for the other; the cleaning stations where fish will arrive to be cleaned of parasites by the cleaner fish, one providing the food, the other providing the housekeeping!

However this doesn't help us in our atempts to reduce the number of places we want to see in the world - now we are starting a list of places we want to see underwater as well! Life is undoubtedly too short.