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The place we’re at: I’m time-traveling again to lastly recap 2020, together with this Wander Ladies Retreat in Koh Tao in March. This publish is Half II of III. Discover Part I here!
We’re re-launching this retreat in 2023 as a Study To Dive Retreat! Learn more here. (Whereas initially scheduled for 2022, the omicron outbreak compelled us to postpone till subsequent 12 months — and we all know it will likely be definitely worth the wait!)
So, the place have been we?
Ah, sure. The world appeared to be collapsing in on itself all over the place however Koh Tao, the place I used to be within the midst of working my ultimate Wander Ladies BC retreat — earlier than COVID consumed all of our lives. Like characters from some type of reverse Misplaced, we appeared, at the very least for the briefest blip of time, to be residing in a magical place that the smoke monster couldn’t get to.
(I feel my weblog goes to be like, 27% TV metaphors from right here on out. Hope everyone seems to be okay with that.)
The third day of our retreat started with one other lovely breakfast within the backyard of our villa, adopted by a morning dive boat. Considered one of my favourite issues about working my very own retreats is I can largely set the foundations. Meaning, wherever I may also help it, 6AM launches? No thanks! (No tanks, even! Ha! No?! Mkay.)
As an alternative, we go away at — at the very least what I contemplate to be — civilized hours.
I can typically have fairly a little bit of enter on our dive boat departure instances. What I can’t management? The dive situations.
Which is why I used to be out of my thoughts with pleasure once we descended underwater for our first dive of the day and located this.
We have been at Chumphon, one of the vital well-known dive websites round Koh Tao, and for good cause. I can inform you, wanting again on these wonderful pictures, this was amongst probably the most lovely I’d ever seen it. The crystal visibility, the education fish, the brilliant coral — that is what folks come from all around the world to dive in Thailand for.
Plus, we had us.
And as you’ll be able to see from these massive underwater smiles… our women have been fairly happy too.
I’m not even going to apologize for the over-documentation of this specific dive. It was simply that good — and is there a extra soothing scroll than this one?
The following dive at Pink Rock was equally as beautiful. We have been simply hitting a dive jackpot day.
On retreats, except there’s a visitor that I buddy up with for a selected cause, I are likely to float between the teams we make primarily based on expertise degree and curiosity (for instance, we put photographers collectively, as a result of they have an inclination to dive sluggish!) On today, each group I discovered was giving me infinite shakas — underwater hand signaling for, that is insanely cool!
After which, earlier than we knew it, we have been again on the floor, buzzing from the vitality of an excellent dive morning.
I used to be additionally past excited for lunch — maybe disproportionately so, ha. However I can’t assist it. Nobody does masaman curry, considered one of my favourite Thai dishes, like Blue Chair Restaurant. And it’s simply a type of little gems that you simply would possibly stroll proper by with out realizing that you simply’re about to overlook one of the best curry on planet earth.
If you happen to don’t thoughts me simply casually gushing over my enterprise for a fast second, I feel that is what makes Wander Ladies Koh Tao so particular. You’re really taking a mixed twelve years of Shannon and my expertise residing on this tiny little rock, and attending to drop in for every week of one of the best of it.
And whereas everybody was like, completely welcome to order no matter they preferred, I’ll or could not have intoned that in the event that they didn’t get a curry and a contemporary coconut, they have been making the worst mistake of their lives.
After some free time to hit Sairee’s cute boutiques, lounge by our personal swimming pools, or take a fast snooze, we have been again on the yoga deck for an additional class. This time, with our good friend Ariel, the arm stability queen! I like highlighting native lecturers and associates on this retreat.
Plus, it’s at all times a deal with for me to slide out of instructor and again into scholar mode, and follow alongside my company. There’s one thing actually intimate concerning the shared vitality of those day by day yoga courses on a retreat. It’s a bit addictive! (In all probability a giant a part of why I can’t cease placing new journeys on my calendar — a preview of which for 2022 is popping out this week!)
Submit-savasana, it was time for our intrepid evening divers to move out. Whereas evening diving isn’t for everybody, I at all times like to include it as an non-obligatory additional to a visit the place and once I can. Particularly, like on our Koh Tao and Red Sea Retreat, the place we are able to supply the wildly distinctive choice of a UV evening dive.
Actually, is really is so cool! As an alternative of a daily torch, you carry an ultraviolet one and put a particular filter over your masks that lets you see what and who underwater fluoresces. Whereas Shannon and Hannah led the neon chasers, the remainder of the crew took the evening to both enterprise off for their very own dinner, or, as many of the group opted for — order in pizza for a slumber celebration on the villa.
Hey, it was midway by means of a giant week!
Which introduced us to the fourth day of the retreat, and one maybe the closest to my coronary heart — conservation day. After having an eco-focused PADI Dive Towards Particles course as one of many “Select Your Personal Journey” choices for our first retreat in 2018, I felt strongly that it was an expertise all our company wanted to have.
And so, we constructed an entire day round honoring the gorgeous island internet hosting us! Beginning with a morning rooftop nature-inspired movement and metta-meditation led by me. When one of many company got here as much as me after and informed me it was one of the best class of her life, my coronary heart nearly burst.
Subsequent, we grabbed some luggage for a seashore cleanup! You know the way generally, regardless of your highest intentions, you find yourself with a plastic bag or two? Your laundry that you simply dropped off in a reusable bag will get returned in a single, your supply you requested plastic-free will get handed to you in a single, and many others. Nicely, I maintain these — and use them for cleanups like these!
We walked (no carbon emissions!) all the best way from the villa to our lunch spot of selection, Vegetabowl (a plant-powered, female-owned favourite!) after which sorted out all of the recycling from the trash we’d collected on our stroll (and washed our palms after, le duh!) I can’t make certain, however I’m fairly certain that someplace on the earth, Greta Thunberg was smiling.
After which we have been off for our conservation scuba dives. We have been so fortunate this 12 months to have Leslie, who labored with the World Wildlife Fund Thailand, lead us in a day of eco-minded diving at Japanese Gardens and Junkyard.
We kicked issues off with a PADI Project Aware underwater cleanup and water high quality survey, adopted by a tour of the bogus reefs that many dive faculties on Koh Tao have mixed forces to check and be taught from.
As you’ll be able to see, we shortly discovered science doesn’t have to be all critical.
Whereas the situations weren’t one of the best ever on these dives, the vibes certain have been! Humorous sufficient in all my years diving for work and for enjoyable on Koh Tao, I had by no means thought too extremely of Junkyard as a dive website. But, we survey our company after each retreat and on our dive journeys, one of many questions asks them to rank favourite websites.
After our 2018 retreat, I used to be amazed how a lot everybody gushed on Junkyard! Give the folks what they need, proper? So I made certain to incorporate it on this journey.
And as soon as once more, it introduced delight — and facilitated some nice conversations on synthetic reefs and why they’re an essential a part of relieving strain on pure reefs and creating underwater analysis labs for locating much more long-term ocean affect options.
You didn’t suppose our theme day was over once we surfaced, proper? Phew, that would have been embarrassing!
Nope, all of us went and bought gussied up and reconvened on the roof for a cheerful hour with Thai wine (yes, it exists!), vegan cheese, and a few epic visitor audio system.
We’d invited Leslie to present a chat on her work with World Wildlife Fund, which she rocked. However after a number of of our company in nursing (enjoyable truth alert: the medical area is the most typical for Wander Ladies attendees to work in) confirmed curiosity in studying extra about what it’s prefer to be a dive medic, I referred to as in my good friend Chris, Koh Tao’s premiere dive doc, in to present a chat too. I like once we can pull strings and make spontaneous particular moments like this occur for our company. Our ears are at all times open searching for the chance!
And we closed our Earth-friendly day with dinner at Vegan Island, sadly a casualty of the pandemic, however in that second, the right place for our massive household dinner.
Earlier than we knew it it was day 5 of the retreat, often known as when “wait a minute, the place is the time going?!” typically turns into each different sentence that comes out of my mouth.
And what do ya know — it was one other theme day. This time, our signature Select Your Personal Journey day! For this one, retreaters select between sooner or later PADI continuing education courses in Freediving, Nitrox, or Underwater Pictures.
It’s a very enjoyable day for me as a result of I get to see everybody, who’s been gaining confidence and luxury underwater with each dive, get to begin to chase a ardour or simply push themselves to strive one thing new — two items diving has given me again and again.
After a morning spent at one of the best school rooms on the earth — a beachfront one — we took our personal dive boat out for a day of enjoyable beginning on the HTMS Sattukut.
That is Koh Tao’s most well-known leisure wreck dive, and I joined the nitrox crew — a course I really feel all critical divers need to consider — and one which I actually too accomplished proper right here on Koh Tao.
I’ve to confess although, on this specific day, I envied the freedivers! PADI Freediving is a course that I can not wait to lastly formally sort out after a number of dabbling. Wander Ladies Freediving — it’s coming to a gross sales web page close to you, sometime!
I imply… simply have a look at these absolute mermaids! Who wouldn’t wish to be this free, beneath the ocean.
It was one other lovely time out on the water. And, as I couldn’t cease marveling at, the subsequent day can be our ultimate diving one. Wait a minute, the place did the time go?!”
We ended a busy day in a deliciously low-key means. At a ravishing yoga shala in Chalok Bay, overlooking the sundown, Shannon led us by means of a melt-worthy yin yoga follow.
After, we floated into Koh Tao Cinema, the place we’d reserved the lovable tropical dinner theater for a non-public exhibiting. We took an eyes-closed vote, and I’m extraordinarily happy to disclose that Splash was the massive winner. May there be a extra acceptable finish to the day?
I have to admit, writing these recaps has me aching past perception for this journey, for this place, for these recollections. It’s true that every day, the sense that our bubble was going to ultimately burst and our acceptance grew that there was nowhere on this world to cover from the modifications heading to our shores as COVID swept the globe. Behind the scenes, every evening introduced a brand new wave of questions as to what was going to occur as we hugged our company goodbye. We have been managing lots of uncertainty, and lots of feelings.
However at the very least a few of them have been bliss — and even, regardless of the worst case eventualities that tended to creep in at the hours of darkness of the evening — I nonetheless look again on it as considerably of a time of innocence.
Thanks for revisiting it with me.
Yet another recap coming your means quickly… <3
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