Anatomy of a Perfect Day

Once in a while, a day is extraordinary. Not just one amazing experience, but three or four, or even a whole series of events work out perfectly. On days like these, acquaintances become friends. You have little time to stop and think about these fun things as you are experiencing them, but the slow pace of Ko Tao Island has allowed me to spend a little time thinking about it, so I share this day with you.

7:00 am - Wake up and get ready to go out diving. Today I am doing two of my five Advanced Level dives. In the morning, I do my Multi-level dive. In this dive, I go with my Danish instructor, Henrik. We spend the first part of the dive at 18 meters then move to 12 meters for the rest of the dive. The point of the dive in to use charts to track the amount of residual nitrogen in the blood and maximize dive time while minimizing time spent on the surface between dives. The dive goes very well, the water was a bit cloudy, but I am able to enjoy some stellar views of some coral-covered boulders and exotic fish.

10:00 am - Upon sufacing from my first dive and getting back on the boat, Henrik tells me it would be alright if I go ahead and join him and three beginner students on the next dive at no extra charge. On this dive, I am able to basically go on my own and practice some buoyancy tricks like floating upside down at a constant depth. While Henrik is occupied with another diver, one of the beginners begin to approach a pretty large fish. I don't know what it was, but see some pretty large teeth in its mouth. The next thing I know, Henrik is swimming towards this young Dane and grabbing him and pulling him away. It is a Triggerfish, known to attack and severely bite some humans if disturbed.

12:00 pm - Our boat returns to our dive shop and resort. I enjoy some delicious Pad Thai for lunch. I relax for a bit, enjoying the amazing setting of our resort. I am staying at the Big Fish Resort. It is a haven for German and Danish scuba divers, all the instructors are multi-lingual and very skilled. The operation in run by an older American guy named Bryan who has been on the Island for 20 years. He was one of the first foreigners here to exploit the scuba opportunities and immense growth potential of the Island. His small resort now sits nestled among countless others on a secluded and calm bay on the South of Ko Tao. This time of year, the weather can change from day to day. These two days, it has been sunny and perfectly clear until late afternoon when the clouds move in.

3:00 pm - Enough with relaxing, time to do something. I have a night dive leaving at six o'clock, so I have about three hours to do some exploring. I grab a snorkel and a mask and make up my mind that I will get to Buddha Point. It is a large crop of rocks that marks the left tip on the cove we are in. The entire side of the cove consists of massive granite boulders. Buddha Point is the tallest formation, with a smaller boulder perched precariously on top on a very large round one, roughly resembling a sitting Buddha. A Billiken, perhaps. If you are familiar with the unique and exotic places of Southern Missouri, it's like Elephant Rocks with the ocean surf splashing against them. As I looked out at the rocks, I notice something that makes my heart jump. A newly constructed basketball court belonging to a neighboring resort calls me. There was a flat soccer ball nearby, so I take the opportunity to polish my skills that I sadly haven't used in months. The rims are a bit lower than usual, nine feet perhaps. As I rise to dunk the soccer ball, I fall woefully short, barely skimming the net. An old Thai man watching nearby cracks a knowing smile. I try it a couple more times, getting higher each time. At last, I rise, tuck the ball against my wrist, then release, slamming it home with authority. As the ball rolls to a stop, I walked off the court, satisfied I could still do something so important as dunk a basetball on a lowered rim. Really, it's been a lifelong love of mine.

So I head out into our cove. It is impossible to climb across the rocks at first, so I swim and snorkell out into the bay. Finally, I am able to scramble up onto the rocks and follow a seaside path along the coast. Again, I am forced into the water. The boulders begin to get larger as I get further out. I climb back onto the rocks painfully close to the sitting Buddha. The rocks are balanced in such a way that at some points, I have to split my legs and climb using pressure, as one might do in a thin hallway. A couple places, I have to use a well-placed rope to get up. As I climb higher, I crawl through a small crevice with a stiff wind coming from it. When I get through, I look up and see nothing but open ocean. I am about 30 meters above the lapping waters and can clearly see the entire bay and tiny bungalows on the beach. But I am not at Buddha yet. I climb higher, grabbing the odd tree branch for support. All of a sudden, a severe pain directly on my buttocks, then another on my hand. Bees! Before I had time to see how many I had stumbled into, or how big the nest was, I was sliding back down the hill, falling over the same tree branches and glancing for bees in pursuit. I am only stung twice and I am safe. Now for the Buddha. I wisely choose another route up the hill and am soon staring at the boulder that is Buddha's head. I made it. I jumped across the last few boulders and sit on Buddha's shoulder. I took in the view of the ocean, back at the Island and at the ever-clouding but still clear sky. It's a feeling like dunking that dusty soccer ball, but a perhaps a little sweeter.

5:00 pm - I get back and join my sister Katie and her freshly stitched up friend Gwen at the restaurant. They were ordering fruit shakes and inconspicuously adding the secret ingredient named after the fine city of Malibu. I was too hyped about my approaching night dive to eat anything more than my own non-alcoholic Tomato shake.

6:00 pm - We head out on the very rough seas to our night dive site. Among the divers was a 20 year old German named Moritz who proudly professes a fondness for women with ancestral origin in the continent under Europe. Another diver Patti, from California, had been working in Australia and took a vacation to Bali, from where she took a vacation to Thailand. Christian is another Dane doing his Advanced Certification as I am. When we get to the dive site, there are several other boats and lights coming from swimming divers under the surface. We get the dive plan from Henrik, then plunge into blackness. We take our powerful torches to the depths and quickly encounter a dryer-sized jellyfish floating effortlessly above us. I glance over and see something rather unnatural. There is an abandoned pair of goggles resting on the sand of the bottom. I snatch them up and with Moritz's help, stow them in my pocket. For nearly 50 minutes, we swim through the dark, encountering three Sting Rays, two Squid, two Crustaceans tucked away in massive conches and countless other startled fish. When we surface and get on the boat, I whip out my new prize and am told by Henrik they're a nice set of 50-dollar goggles and are mine to keep. Bonus.

9:00 pm - When we get back to Big Fish, I join Patti and Christian for a well needed dinner of fried Squid (my mouth was watering when I encounted them in the deep). Following dinner we go to the nearby bar and order two "Buckets". A massive container filled with a delicious blend of Saengsom Rum/Whiskey, Coke and Red Bull. After some good conversation and entertainment from several fire-swingers, it is getting a bit late.

1:00 am - We leave the bar and head to the only late night destination at our disposal on this tiny Island adrift in the Gulf of Thailand, 7-11. One of us three indulges in a foot-long hot dog and a liter bottle of coke. Unbelievably, it is not an American. As we stroll back down the street, I see it. One of the diving resorts trains its divers in a pool before unleashing them into the ocean. We quickly disrobe and jump into the darkened pool. We were a bit worried about getting caught and ejected from the premesis, but all we got were the odd group of drunken tourists asking us how to find So and So Bar.

2:00 am - Another moment of inspiration seeps into my brain. I scale the wall next to the pool then hop on the overhanging roof of the nearby resort. For the next 20 minutes, we proceeded to make several noisy jumps from the roof into the deep end, drawing the attention of exactly no one.

3:00 am - We wind down with another covert swim in the resort next to ours, with Patti commandeering several table cloths for use as towels. A beautiful ending to a beautiful day.


In two hours, I will leave the Island of Ko Tao and take a ferry to another Island called Ko Phanang. More adventures await, including one known as the "Full Moon Party".