The Life Aquatic

I recently picked up a hobby that has appealed to me for a long time.  Scuba diving.  Thailand is a great place to learn about diving with a huge quantity of great dive sites available at relatively low cost.

I got my PADI Open Water certification at the end of July. The PADI certification process in Thailand is high quality, safety focused, and valid anywhere in the world.  I used Mermaids Dive Center in Pattaya for certification.  They were wonderful and I would highly recommend them to anyone looking to get certified in Bangkok or Pattaya.  Open water certification involved 12 hours on online pre-work followed by three days of instruction and exercises in the water from native English speaking instructors.

I have been diving as often as possible since getting certified and now have 14 dives completed.

Mary has zero interest in scuba diving, but I have found a good diving buddy her in Bangkok.  The PADI certification course and most of my dives have been with a friend our ours that we know from high school who also lives in Bangkok.

Rather than continuing to write about diving, I'd rather just show you.  I recently bought a Olympus TG-4 underwater camera, so it's easy to share photos of my underwater adventures.

First a few shots with my wonderful dive buddy, Quyen.

I've seen things that range from colorful...

To potentially deadly...

To stunningly beautiful.

And of course one of the best parts of diving with a friend is having someone to take pictures of you! I am in the two on the right and the one of the bottom left.  Quyen is in the top left and bottom center.

Mary, Lily, and I will be traveling back to the US soon for Christmas, so it looks like I likely will have to wait a while for more diving. I am already excited for more underwater adventures next year though!  God's aquarium is an amazing place!

And if you were wondering, the blog title is in fact a reference to a film by my favorite movie director, Wes Anderson.