Swimming With Sharks!

Posted by Nicki

That’s right folks, it’s said you’re supposed to do something everyday that scares you, so for a day in Ko Tao, I did exactly that. Swam with the sharks!

As I said in the previous post, Ko Tao is known for having some of the best diving in all south east asia, and Em and I decided to experience what it had to offer. Since neither of us have our PADI certification, we were only able to snorkle, but it was well worth it. (PS, if you ever want to get certified, and have a few days, I’d recommend Ko Tao. The island has mountains upon moutains of scuba certification schools, apparently dirt cheap compared to what they are in the states. If we had had more time, I might have done it.)

We booked ourselves for a day long snorkle trip through a store around the block from our hostel. It picked us up in the morning and we didn’t get back until late afternoon. In the trip we got to see all around the island, and were dropped off to snorkel in about 6 or 7 different bays, it was awesome. The fish and the coral were absolutely breathtaking. So many millions of colors, shapes and sized. The water was crystal clear, it was almost as if you were floating on top of an aquarium…which I suppose in a way you really are. You could reach out and almost touch them. Bright yellow, electric neon colors, some that one girl described as rainbow sherbert, all sorts of different colors mixed together. Big ones, small ones, thousands of little ones in a school forming all sorts of shapes as they moved, I swear it looked to be right out of a movie like Finding Nemo. Little shiny ones that looked like a downpour of silver confettii. I was endlessly impressed. At the end of the day we also visited a little collection of three islets, now used primarily as a dive resort. Also really stunning.

And, yes, in one of the bays, black tip reef sharks! I was pretty scared to jump in, but once I actually saw one, I found myself wanting to follow it all through the reef. The bay the sharks were in was quite deep, the sharks swimming down on the bottom and snorkelers floating on the top. The sharks didn’t even pay us any notice. Oh, and just so you all don’t think I’m really super brave…they were little ones, of the three I saw, the biggest might have been about 3 feet, but hey, they’re still sharks!