Finished PADI Open Water Course

Tim: This morning was our last day of the PADI Open Water Course. We went for two dives this morning starting at 8:00 am. As usual saw lots of fish: sting ray, morrey eel, porcupine fish, barracuda, pipe fish, grouper, etc... Went down to 18 meters. Both Amber and I are feeling really comfortable in the water now and I'm sure we will do many more dives before our trip is done.

Went out to Italian food last night with Rico, Justin, Joe, and our dive instructor Fai. The food was actually really good. Amber road on the motor scooter with Fai, The boys got separated temporarily and we parked our bikes and went into a restaurant called El Gringo. Something about the name didn't ring Italian to me. Amber and Fai still hadn't showed up when Rico and Justin had ordered a beer. Rico gave Fai a phone call to see where they were at only to find out that were were in the wrong restaurant. Farangos the Italian restaurant was the next restaurant down, not the Mexican place we were sitting in. The beer drinking by Rico and Justin for most of the day may have lead to the mix up.

After a nice dinner of Lasagne and Pizza, we all went back to where Amber and I are staying. There is a nice pool with chairs and tables around. We made some cocktails with Thai Whiskey (Sam Song) and played a card game (up and down the river). Overall a really enjoyable day!

Amber:  Tim is walking up to where we had pizza last night to rent a moter scooter.  Rico usually gets his from there and they are supposed to be the best value on the island; 150 baht a day.  Being as we are done with the our open water diver certificate, tomorrow we are going to cruise around the island and see if we want to stay else where than at Ban's.  Better price is always good, but our location is centeralized and clean. 
Diving was really fun today - we practiced taking our maskes completely off under water and putting them back on.  Surprisngly, I did better with the whole mask removal than the trial partial.  We also did cesa, which is where you hypotheically run out of air and need to surface with out your buddys air supply.  I was fairly certain that I would run out of air half way to the surface, freak out, and have to do the whole test over again.  Nope!  I passed first try, as did Tim.  The fish here are amazing, or maybe it's just that we can actually get down to where they are swimming and haing out for a bit!  There are so many different types, and they are everywhere, so it's hard to pick your favorite.  The morey eel and the sting ray are pretty cool.  The first dive today I got a bloody nose, but other than that, both of us did well.  We are hooked, and considering doing our advaned dive certificate so we can be cool like Justin, Ricko and Joe and go to 30m and swim with the big kids (and fish)!
Tim got a professional hair cut after 6 months of cutting it on his own.  For 200 baht - about $6 US!  Gotta love how frugal the man is!  For 200 baht, it definately looks like a real hair dresser cut it, not Tim, with a mirror and hand sheers!