My girlfriend and I ended up diving with Goodtime Adventures. My girlfriend was just recently qualified so I preferred to dive with a smaller company.
We had a great time diving in the week we where there. I am not sure if we were just lucky but the diving was above average to excellent, in terms of weather, visibility and marine life.
All the staff at Goodtimes were very friendly and nothing seemed to be a problem. They managed to supply smaller tanks for my girlfriend (7L? Thanks Lindsay) as she struggles out of the water with the standard tank. They were willing to listen and try as best they can to accommodate requests, ie sites that we wanted to dive. I guess because they are a smaller company it is a little easier to manage. A BIG thankyou goes to Dave, one of the instructors/DM who we dived with towards the end. I had requested that we slow the pace down, that my girlfriend was still learning the basics, and I didn't mind if we only saw half of the site. He was totally cool with that, and offered some tips to my girlfriend as we dived. Her diving improved dramatically, possibly because she was a little more relaxed, with Dave's presence and tips! Her confidence sky rocked, so much so that after our last dive with Dave she wanted to go again, in the afternoon. Thanks Dave!
I did my advanced certification while I was there. I chose, Deep, Navigation, Wreck, Night/Limited visibilty, and Perfect Bouyancy. Mark, my instructor, was excellent! He was very patient and would answer all of my related or unrelated questions. A very informative and conscientious instructor. It helps when the instructor enjoys their work and is not jaded teaching X amount of people OW day after day. Thanks Mark.
My deep dive I dived to 28m (or there abouts, I don't have my log book with me) and as an added bonus saw a turtle. Navigation, I led the dive, with Mark and we didn't get lost, always a bonus!
. Wreck, we dived the HTMS Sattakut. I must admit I was more impressed than I had expected to be. I have dived some very non descript "wrecks" before as an OW diver and didn't think to much of it, but the HTMS Sattakut opened my eyes to how exiting wreck diving could be. My night dive, I'll admit I was a little apprehensive, we descended on a site that I had dived previously, "Twins", just as the sun went down. Within five minutes of darkness, I was grinning from ear to ear for the duration of the dive. Quite magical! Bouyancy, I managed to trim a little weight off, not alot, I don't think I was seriously overweighted anyway. All in all a great experience.
Finally if you like or care to try authentic Thai food, you may be disappointed with the offerings from the local restaurants. The Thai food that we ate in the local restaurants was, I found, westernised and not a true representation of how great Thai food can be. However if you walk from Goodtimes, (beach road) to the main road and turn left, walk 100m down the hill you will come across a 7/11. Around the 7/11 is all manner of street food and an impromptu outdoor Thai restaurant where you can get the real stuff at a 1/3 the price.
A short video of some of what we saw on the last day, apologies if it makes anyone sea sick, still learning!
[video=vimeo;106348884]https://vimeo.com/106348884[/video]
