Hooooo boy, do I owe an update!
So Mike and I relocated to Koh Tao. It's beautiful here... my favorite place in Thailand so far. The beaches are beautiful, there's lots of fun jungle roads and the town is small, but big enough to have room to wander.
When we got to Koh Tao, we knew we were on the job hunt. All this travel has been great, but the bank accounts were certainly starting to look wounded. If we ever wanted to leave Thailand, we were going to have to hunt for work. We spent a few days just getting our bearings on the island, renting a scooter and scooting around town. We found a place to stay for a month and moved on in. We're about a 15 - 20 minute walk from the main part of town... depending on how fast you walk! We're in a little guesthouse... its not much, but its enough. We've got a fridge, a fan, a bathroom with a warmish shower... all the best amenities here in Thailand!
After a few days of playing, we started pounding the pavement looking for work. There are around 40 dive shops in Koh Tao, so it took a couple days to hit them all, and there's still some we didn't make it to. The first day we handed out resumes, Mike got a call from a shop! He's been working there as a freelance instructor since! It took me an extra two or three days of pavement pounding, but I finally got a call and have been working flat out! I really like the shop that I'm at, but damn is it a lot of work! Not that I'm complaining... I'm making money!
I started with three Open Water courses back to back... and I mean back to back! I would finish one course at midday and start another one the same day at 4pm. It's been really challenging... the water was pretty rough for my first two courses, so the visibility has been pretty poor, making my problem students even bigger challenges than they normally would have been! But it's been good, I've certified 9 students in as many days! Today the viz finally cleared up and we had a really really nice dive for our last open water course.
I finally have a little free time today and tomorrow morning (nearly 24 hours off!!!) but then its back to the grind teaching a Rescue course! It's one of the most challenging courses to take, and its the first one I'm teaching so... eeeeek! I'm a pile of nerves! But hopefully it'll be fun. When I took the course 1,000 years ago now (aka 2010), it was really really fun, but a lot of hard work, so I hope I can create the same thing for my student! I only have one, so that should make things a bit easier.
But life on Koh Tao is good... its a lot of work, but I think we'll stick around for a little while, try and make some moneys before we run off on the next adventure. I'll try to update again soon, but if I run away for a while its because I'm working flat out!
Love and fishes!
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