As I wrapped up my time in Asia I found myself with a week to fill before flying to Sydney to meet my great old roommate Aussie Mike. Considering how nice the island of Koh Tau was the first time around I thought it was worth a few more days of exploring. When I was there in January getting my scuba diving certification I remember walking past a school called Blue Immersion that had a 2-day freediving course for 5500 Baht and advertised that after the 2-day course students would be able to hold their breath for “up to” 3 minutes and dive to 20 meters. “Wow!” I said, and so I was quickly on my way back to Koh Tau.
The first time around I flew from Don Muang to Chumphon on Nok Air then an hour minibus ride to the Chumphon Pier followed by a 4 hour wait for the 1hr45min ferry ride on the Lomprayah fast catamaran to Koh Tau. All for 3800 Baht. This time I opted to take to the overnight Lomprayah VIP bus (air con, reclining seats, and toilet) from Khao San Road in Bangkok directly to the Chumphon Pier. 8 hour bus ride followed by 1hr45min ferry – total price 1100 Baht. The bus was comfortable and the trip was uneventful other than the bus leaving 1.5 hours late. We arrived in Koh Tau at 10am Monday.
This time around I decided to stay in a hostel on Koh Tau and chose the waterfront hostlel, Goodtimes Hostel, for 600 Baht per night in a 10 bed mixed dorm with AC and a big balcony overlooking the beach. Goodtimes Hostel quick review: Underpowered AC and major boom boom party music from next door bar with very loud music until 2am was a bit of a problem. Val and Sara are great hosts and do a nice job of making all of the hostel guests feel welcome. 2 of the beds in the 10 room mixed dorm had bed bugs and they particularly bad, I left with my first case of bed bug bites with both my legs and my back completely covered in itchy mosquito-bite looking bites. I imagine this is a risk anytime you stay in a hotel or and even more of a risk in a hostel. I feel lucky I only had this problem once in three months of travel, sleeping in many places with questionable sanitation policies throughout Asia.
Some quick facts on the cost of living in Koh Tau: The hostel pays 250,000 Baht a month in rent plus 80,000 Baht a month for water and electricity. You can buy a regular 125cc Honda scooter second hand for about 9000 Baht. You can rent an studio apartment for 9000 Baht a month. Water and electricity are notoriously expensive utilities on the island.
Once settled, I registered for the 2-day SSI Level 1 Freediving course with Blue Immersion for 5500 Baht. My instructor, Charles Muller, was a 22 year old South African who previously worked as a PADI Dive Instructor. The course was two long days from 8am to 4pm of classroom instruction and in water instruction. After much patience and instruction from Charles, I ended up with a static breath hold time of 2 minutes (not moving, just putting your head underwater) and dove down to 15 meters three times (49.5 feet). It was an incredible feeling to be able to do dive deep and comfortably. It is a bit about fin kicking technique and much more about relaxing to lower your heart rate and doing a two minute breath-up just before diving down. At the end of the last day of the course we took the dive boat to the White Rock dive site at Koh Nang Yuan where about 15 freedivers ‘freely’ descended on the dive site where there many scuba divers. It was incredible to be diving down 20 feet and swimming through the fish and past scuba divers – all on my own breath of air.
How to Freedive
Basically, do the following: breath normally into your belly for 1:40. Breath so that your belly goes out, not your chest. It’s easy just think about your belly expanding with air as you breath. So, breath in comfortably for 4 seconds then breath out for 8 seconds, pinching your lips so that the air comes out slowly. Then after doing that for 1:40 (or longer) take one deep breath, a big gulp, and blow it out slowly with your lips pinched. Then one more big deep breath into your belly and dive down. Hold your breath and dive down. Kick with your fins only, don’t use your arms. Your fins are strong enough to get you where you want to swim and your arms will only waste your energy, aka waste your breath. You will need to equalize your ears immediately and often as you descend. Pinch your nose and try to blow out through your ears. Your diaphragm will “pop” your ears. Do this often as you descent. Equalizing your ear drum is harder than holding your breath as you go deep.
When you surface you will want to take recovery breaths, in which you take a big gulp of air, hold it for 2 seconds then exhale quickly and repeat 3 or 4 times. Also note, when you are underwater and you feel an intense need to breath…if you feel like you will be out of air in 1/2 a second and may die….know that you are okay. As you hold your breath your body is consuming the oxygen in your lungs and converting it to CO2. Normally you exhale this CO2 as you breath in an out on the surface. When you hold your breath your body is still converting the oxygen to CO2 but you aren’t exhaling it. The intense feeling to breath when you are underwater is your bodies reaction to the CO2 building up in your lungs. It is uncomfortable but get past it. When you have this intense sensation to breath you have used 1/2 of the oxygen in your lungs and are roughly at your halfway mark before you actually run out of oxygen. The ability to get past this feeling to breath from the CO2 build up is the key to being able to freedive confidently.
That’s basically it. Lower your heart rate by simply relaxing in the water and practice the 2 minute breath up many times. It will increase your underwater breath hold time. If you want to learn more head to Koh Tau in Thailand where Charles Muller at Blue Immersion Freediving will have you comfortably diving to 50 feet in no time!
- Rent scooter at the pier upon arrival, 200 Baht per day is the normal price
- Make sure you go to Natural High Cafe
- Blue Water Cafe is a great place for breakfast or lunch
- Don’t take a scooter up to the Mango Bay Viewpoint – it is too steep and you’ll probably crash
- I highly recommend Ban’s Diving with instructor Dan McGladdery (dan.mac.underwater@gmail.com). Expect to pay 9800 Baht or less for the 3 1/2 day course including 4 nights accommodation in a nice room at Ban’s Resort which has a perfect location on Sairee Beach in Koh Tau.
One Trusted Voice 