My Australian partner-in-crime, Morgan, at Sunshine Divers on Koh Tao.

THIS is it – no more joking around in the swimming pool – it’s time to take the plunge and jump into the warm Gulf of Thailand waters off Koh Tao island and hope the scuba gear strapped to my back supplies me with air.

Butterflies have been performing a merry dance in my stomach since I awoke and realised that I’d be diving today.

But let’s rewind a little first: The plan to go diving had been slowly hatching itself in my mind since an Australian friend emailed me and said he was coming to visit. Oh, and could we do some diving while he was around?
Sure mate, no problem.

Myanmar has some top-class dive sites in the Myeik Archipelago and the Bay of Bengal off either Chaungtha or Ngwe Saung beaches, but try as I might I could not arrange an affordable holiday.

But Thailand was a different story and after meeting my friend in Bangkok we arranged flights to Koh Samui island with Bangkok Airways, which enjoys an enviable monopoly on flights to and from Samui.

From there we booked passage on a ferry to Koh Tao, also called Turtle island, which is blessed with a plethora of relatively shallow dive sites that are perfect for learners. Unsurprisingly it’s one of the three most popular places on earth to learn how to dive. Competition to sign up learners is fierce, which drags prices down – unlike Myanmar, where operators enjoy a cornered market.

The Koh Samui-Koh Tao ferry was awash with booking agents all clamouring to get us to sign up to the “best” operators, which gave us a chance to gauge the market and find out how much we’d have to pay for what services. In the end we chose an operator recommended by a friend.

End result: Sunshine Divers on Chalok Baan Kao beach for four nights’ accommodation and one Open Water Diver PADI course for me. Cost: 8500 baht. That’s about US$270 – which I figured was pretty cheap for what we were getting.

The following day I was in a swimming pool showing my instructor – Ties, a genial Dutchman – that I could swim and tread water; as if any self-respecting Aussie can’t swim or tread water!

Next, he showed me all the equipment and explained what everything did, all important information because the PADI course includes an examination.

And then it was time to put on all the gear – which is bloody heavy out of the water – and take the first of my plunges. Confidence is the key and you must trust that your equipment will deliver the air once you’re under the surface.

Once under the surface, Ties led me through exercises in how to recover a misplaced breathing regulator; how to use the secondary breathing regulator; how to clear water from my mask; and how to use the air in my lungs and buoyancy control device (BCD) to keep me hovering above the seafloor.

Sounds complicated? Er, yes, a little, but you soon get the hang of it.
Next it was back to the dive shop to begin studying – mainly watching videos, reading and filling out short questionnaires.

Which brings me back to my present reality.

Below me in the water Ties is telling me to scan the water below me for potential hazards, hold my right hand over my regulator and mask, and my left on the buckle of my weight belt.

Now look at the horizon and make a large step off the boat and remember to breathe through the regulator when you hit the water.

Ties is an excellent teacher and as I stepped off the boat into the water the training took over – breathe, surface and then fill the BCD with air. Easy really, but greater challenges awaited me.

Earlier, Ties and I had gone through a safety-check routine that divers remember with amusing phrases like ‘Bruce Willis Ruins All Films’ or ‘Bangkok Women Really Are Fellas’ that stand for: Buoyancy, Weights, Releases, Air and Final check. Basically, you make sure that everything works and you have enough air.

Next, we swam over to a buoy anchored to the seafloor and again ran through the process of descending: deflate the BCD, equalise your ears and nose, scan the water for hazards and then slowly descend. As you go down you must breathe slowly and regularly, and equalise – to release pressure that builds up in your ears and sinuses – every foot or so to prevent injury.

Most people would know equalising as the “popping” of their ears when flying or descending from a mountain but underwater it’s crucial; failure to do so can lead to burst eardrums.

At first, my breathing is ragged and I’m shaking a little but even though my eyes are riveted to the rope and Ties, in the corners of my vision I can see schools of fish swimming through the water. Masses of coral and rocks slowly materialise the farther down we go.

Breathing the rubber-tasting air through the regulator initially feels bizarre and you worry that it will come out and leave you frantically trying to recover it but you soon forget about it and concentrate on the stunning world around you.

In a word – it’s awesome.

However, you still have to concentrate on a few things – like rule Number One when diving: Never hold your breath.

The same pressure that hurts your ears also applies to air in your lungs – it shrinks on descent and expands on ascent. A balloon filled with air at 10m underwater and released towards the surface will explode before it gets there. Your lungs will do the same.

It was a magical experience but was over far too quickly – I think I was only down for about 40 minutes and probably spent nearly half that time doing training exercises.

At the end of the dive Ties signalled that it was time to go up and I checked my air-gauge – I had only one quarter of my air left. On the way up we paused at the 5m mark for three minutes as a safety stop to guard against decompression sickness – and then slowly swum to the surface.

If getting into the water is slightly nerve-wracking and quick, getting out is disappointing and slow because you don’t want to leave, and hauling yourself plus the scuba equipment onto the boat is a chore with tired legs.

Underwater the visibility, or “vis” in dive-speak, was not brilliant and probably only reached about 12 or 15m at best. But for my first forays into the undersea world it was more than enough – no pun intended – to take my breath away.

In the four dives I did over two days I saw schools of vicious-looking barracuda, a sea turtle, several moray eels, a banded sea snake, tiny translucent shrimps, a blue-spotted stingray and literally thousands of colourful reef fish.

Diving, just like the nitrogen you inhale through your scuba gear along with oxygen, gets into your blood and it’s a sure bet that I’ll be looking a little closer to home for my next underwater adventure.