I have a confession to make: It’s been two years since our last dive, and I haven’t cracked a PADI book or given much thought to scuba since then. So when we boarded our dive boat yesterday morning at Ao Nang Beach here in Thailand, I experienced a sudden onset of jitters.
Divemaster Maoro from Italy told me to hook up my regulator to the tank, and I sputtered, “I forgot how!”
He stared at me in disgust and said, “You are a PADI-certified diver! You must take responsibility for the equipment.”
“I know, I know, but it’s been two years, and I just forgot,” I whined.
Patiently, he lectured about the importance of re-reading my manuals or taking an occasional refresher course. “Yeah, right, of course, but today will you just do it for me?” I asked.
Big Italian sigh. Mauro calmly showed me how to set up all my equipment and then pointed out that I had put on my wetsuit backwards. Oops. Zipper goes in the back, duh.
Anyway, despite all the millions of things that can go wrong when a ding dong like me grabs an oxygen tank and sets off for a deepwater swim, I’m happy to report that nothing did. In fact, Mauro led us on two uneventful dives off the coast of the Phi Phi Islands. The other couple in our group was from Germany – Oliver, who is a certified rescue diver, and Sandra, who had only done six previous dives. We always have to dive with a buddy, so I asked Sandra if she wanted to trade. “I’m a tad nervous,” I told her. “I would really like a rescue diver for a buddy.” She declined.

Our day started with a ride on the dive shop’s “bus” to the beach.

Then we boarded a longboat for the ride out to the dive boat.

Finally, we went aboard the dive boat and took off.

Tony suits up.

Our beautiful boat!

We did two fairly shallow dives (around 15 meters) at two different sites off the coast of the Phi Phi Islands – Hin Bida and Bida Nok.

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On the first dive, we were welcomed into a school of yellow fish, which surrounded us and showed us around the reef. A blue moray eel smacked his lips menacingly, and Marou picked up a jellyfish about the size of a Thanksgiving turkey. It swished away with translucent gracefulness. At one point, thousands of fish streamed toward us, so we quickly sought out the source of their fear – a leopard shark. It makes me wonder at the intelligence of my species when we seek out the predators instead of fleeing them with the rest of the marine life.

Our second dive was even better with more colorful coral – purple barrels, orange fans, effervescent green balls, rainbows of branches clinging to the underwater cliff – and uncountable fish. In some nooks, a solid column of little fish swirled from the sea floor to the surface. At times, we were so engulfed in the clouds of fish that we could barely see each other. A school of barracuda swam overhead; a small grey ray with blue polka dots scooted over the sand below us. We spotted another moray, which Marou later told us was a rare zebra eel.

Ao Nang Divers deserves a great big pat on the back for a safe and well-organized day. We appreciated the clean, comfortable boat, equipment that was clearly in good condition, tasty lunch of beef curry and fresh fruit, and excellent divemasters. We have definitely experienced dives with NONE of those things, so we know a good thing when we find it!

P.S. “Are you for scuba?” is a quote from the movie Along Came Polly, and we crack ourselves up saying it every time we get ready to dive.