After nine nights on Koh Lanta it was time for us to move on to our next destination. Although the next destination was another island, we really didn’t want to leave Koh Lanta. We were having so much fun. No, it didn’t have the most beautiful beaches we’ve ever been to, but they were nice and there were more we could have explored if we had had more time. Four days had been spent out diving and for me another one and a half was in the classroom. The food was great and Palm Beach Divers were awesome. We spent a lot of our 7 hour ferry ride talking about going back to Koh Lanta and again, how much we didn’t want to leave.
Then the ferry pulled up to Koh Lipe and we were like, “Wow. Forget Koh Lanta!”. Ko Lipe has the picturesque Thai beach you envision…super white, fine sand and crystal clear beautiful blue warm water. Before we even got our feet on the land our conversation switched to, “Only three nights here?! What were we thinking?!”.
Pattaya Beach, Koh Lipe
Koh Lipe is much smaller than Koh Lanta, you can walk the entire island. There are no cars on the island, only a few motorbikes and those are not to rent. It was so beautiful that our dinner conversations every night were about moving there and working remotely and/or becoming scuba instructors / english teachers.
Like Koh Lanta, Lipe is in the Andaman Sea. Before arriving, we didn’t realize how very close it is to Malaysia but it became very apparent as most of the tourists were Malaysian. We were excited to go scuba diving again and after getting our advanced certifications were ready to try a more challenging dive. Even though the island is super small, diving is big in the area so there were at least six dive shops to choose from. I had read the TripAdvisor reviews on all of them and narrowed it down to three. We spoke with two of them and decided on Forra Diving. We stopped into both locations they have on the island and the staff seemed great, as well as the dive they had scheduled for the day we wanted to go diving. The dive site they were headed to was called 8 Mile Rock and it sounded awesome. It’s an under water mountain where the rock itself starts at roughly 15m and at its deepest is over 50m. We were hoping to see large grouper, lots of different kind of rays, large barracudas, big schools of other fish and maybe a whale shark. We were warned that the current might be strong but we weren’t concerned about that as they had a descent line and we recently dove in some strong currents. We were ready for the depth and the current. Bring it on - we were excited and wanted to see some awesome underwater creatures!
The day before the dive we got fitted in the shop for our wetsuit and fins. We showed up at 8:30 AM the next day as instructed and were frustrated when we didn’t head over to the boat until just before 9:30AM. I hate waiting. Sure they apologized a few times but I’m not sure why the delay and it was very annoying. The dive boat itself was fine but not as nice as the Palm Beach Divers boat in Koh Lanta. They warned us that the bathroom doors stick sometimes. The first time I was in there for a few minutes pounding on the door hoping someone would hear me and open the door for me. It’s hard to hear this pounding because they bathrooms are near the compressors for the tanks and they are super loud. Each time I used the toilet I got stuck in the bathroom. After getting stuck the first time, the solution to this was that Jake had to go downstairs with me anytime I had to use the toilet in order to let me out afterwards. Annoying! If you are claustrophobic you are doomed on this boat.
During our eight mile journey to the dive site our divemaster (owner of the shop) asked us to come downstairs and get our gear ready (per the usual process). We went down there and it was nowhere to be found. The gear we had been fitted for wasn’t on the boat. Nowhere to be seen. He gave us someone else’s to use and it fit fine but it was a bit of a cluster and my level of annoyance only increased. It was decided that we’d be the first group to enter the water so that when our dive was finished someone else could use the gear. Lesson learned: when you arrive at the dive shop make sure they have your gear going on your boat.
The divemaster, his buddy, me and Jake did our dive plan at the surface. When we arrived at the site we were all happy to see that the current was very low, not going to be an issue. We jumped in and started to descend. Using a new BCD for the first time I had some issues with the initial descent because it operated a bit differently than the one I had used on all previous dives. We descended to 35 meters, the deepest I’ve ever been and I pretty quickly new something wasn’t right with how I was feeling. The wonderful, happy, excited feeling I had had on every dive before wasn’t there. I felt very, very, anxious and my breathing was rapid. I signaled to Jake and to the divemaster that I needed to slow down. We did and then proceeded but I began to feel like I was having a mini anxiety attack. I saw beautiful fish swimming around me and all I wanted to do was get out of the water. I grabbed Jake’s hand and held it for the rest of the dive. I knew that I could signal to end the dive but I thought I could keep going. I wasn’t enjoying it but I didn’t want to end the dive, I was hoping that the feeling would subside. The divemaster was signaling to the large grouper in the distance, I saw them but felt like I was in a dream. Kind of out of it. All I did was focus on trying to slow down my breathing and be calm. I had been trained to dive, I knew what to do. Due to the depth and rapid breathing, I was quickly running out of air so me and my buddy (Jake) ascended. The entire dive was 23 minutes and I think that it was the longest 23 minutes of my life. Words can’t convey the terror and misery I felt on that dive. It was one of the worst experiences of my life if not the worst. I didn’t feel like I was going to die, but I was very scared. Of what, I don’t really know? I was just uncomfortable with the situation. I think the factors that led to this experience were a trifecta of too much change: diving with new people, new equipment and being at a deeper depth than ever before. We approached the depth more quickly than I had in other dives. It was really, really awful for me. When we were back on the boat I sat in silence for a long time, in awe and reflecting on what had happened. I had no anxiety going into the water. I was excited for the dive and if I had felt any of the feelings I ended up having underwater, I never would have went diving. I was done diving for the day and maybe forever. The awfulness of how I felt underwater offset any of the previous enjoyment I had had.
I obviously didn’t do the next dive which was at the same site. After a few hours had passed, I decided that I absolutely had to get back into the water on that day and do the third dive. I figured that if I didn't get back in the water that day, I may never go scuba diving again. I didn’t want weeks to pass with that being my last dive. I didn’t want that to be my last memory of being in the water. The third dive site was called Stonehenge and you could stay much shallower and have a great dive so I decided I needed to do it. It ended up being a great dive and I really enjoyed it, just like I had before. There’s a large hard coral reef and an incredible soft coral garden. We saw many of the same fish we had seen near Koh Lanta but the coral was so different - so many new colors - beautiful shades of purple. Although our dive plan was to stay above 20m, the dive master brought us down to 28m and we saw a yellow seahorse. While it’s very annoying that we didn’t stick to the dive plan, I was ok with the depth on that dive and I think it’s because we approached it so gradually. It was really cool to see a seahorse. We also saw a moray eel, a stonefish, a scorpionfish, clownfish, triggerfish, and many schools including one of barracudas.
I got back on the boat and was feeling elated about having such a good dive experience after such an awful one. I was and continue to be, so happy that I got back in the water. It was the last dive of the day so I broke down my equipment. I was doing so with a huge smile on my face which was quickly taken away when I felt a huge burst of pain on my leg. I was standing next to the compressor exhaust which wasn’t properly covered and was burning my leg. Worst burn of my life. What an end to the day. I look like I’ve been branded. I iced it on the way back to the island and immediately went to the pharmacy. They gave me some ointment that is helping it heal well. If it leaves a bad scar I may as well get a tattoo and cover the battle wound. Jake and I can’t get over the fact that the ointment smells like peanuts. No joke, peanut ointment is healing my burn. Hey - whatever works!
I’ve learned from this experience. Next time I go scuba diving, I will not change so many factors. I will stay at shallower depths until I am more familiar with the people I am diving with and with the equipment I’m using.
Believe it or not, there is more to this story. The Koh Lipe scuba diving experience doesn’t end here. Stay tuned for our next post which will be Jake’s ordeal from that day.
~ Jesslyn