We arrived on Phi Phi yesterday after a 3hour boat ride from Phuket. It's simply amazing here. Phuket was so large that you didn't really realize that you were still on an island. It's so much smaller here -- and everything is so close to the water that it's very apparent. It's hard to imagine the tsunami pounding through here -- but construction and empty lots are all around. You meet local people here who have that look in their eyes making them appear much older then they really are. Entire families were killed and there was so much destruction here.

Hopefully tomorrow we are going to go on the tsunami walk -- a free walk of the island where they show you how the tsunami affected people and the island itself. It should be quite interesting. Then it's on to climbing! I got some HUGE blisters on my toes that I'm waiting for to dry up (from the fins while diving) but I'm itching to get on the rock. It simply looks amazing here!

Got to run -- expensive here in Phi Phi for the interweb. But let me leave you with this ... we're in a bungalow up about 10m from the ocean on a small cliff. The guest house has a small private beach and a crazy french lady who helps run it and does the cleaning. It has a view of Phi Phi Ley and the other side of the Ton Sai harber/bay. It's just amazing!

Diving Day 1
Classroom Activities:
Watch 4 videos. Learn that dying would suck while underwater. Make mental note not to die.
Take 3 quizes -- each 10 questions. Get two answers wrong from reading the question or answer wrong. Darn multiple choice.
Talk to the teacher about places to eat food. Figure out good lunch place. Re-emphasize that mistakes underwater are bad mmmmkay?
Go eat local thai food (some sort of chicken and rice dish that was quite good. And Rob would have LOVED the spicy sauce... three dishes of sauce. No signs and no way to find out which one was spicy. Dip your fork in each one and try. The one that looks like soy sauce IS soy sauce. The other two? The one with the chili peppers is mild. The other one? GAWDAMN! It burned going down the back of my throat).
Head back to the classroom only to quickly go jump in the car and head to the pool.
Pool Activities:
Try on gear on the way. Find out that the location their gear is in (their other shop) is in the "Gay Section" of town.
Go in the pool. Get good overall runthrough of practices on the ground. Suit up. Jump in.
Learn that it is OK to breath underwater. 29 years of swimming has taught me otherwise. But I taste oxygen when I breathe so I mentally just concentrate on breathing.
Perform all pool practices with only two minor hiccups. The first was the silly weight belt. It actually weighs a fair amount. It twists up on me and I spend a good 3 minutes trying to get it back on.
The second mistake was just me forgetting part of the lesson... sharing the extra breathing valve with a partner had more to it then getting to the partner and starting to breathe. (Duh).
Then the instructor randomly started having us do more things. Doing sumersaults in the water. He'd randomly come by and take off our masks. He had us practice nutral bouiancy (a word that I STILL can't spell).
End of Day 1.

So I'm still alive. I now know NOT to die while diving. That would suck. Tomorrow is into the deep water (known as the ocean) for us. Two -- possibly three dives if we do things well again today. The instructor seemed impressed -- but I think it was more that we're just used to more "extreme" sports and not screwing things up when our lives are on the line. But what do I know?

*yawn*
Oh yah -- we actually did skim/study/read the PADI book yesterday evening -- so the videos were quite repetitive and the quizes were quite a breeze. The math part is kinda driving me bonkers -- but their little dive table chart isn't the easiest thing to read either. Ah well.
Tonight we finished the fourth quiz, finished reading the remaining 2 chapters (and associated review written work) and took the final quiz. I *think* we are ahead of the game!