By Beth Green

We did our dive training at Master Divers, in Mae Haad.
Koh Tao is a tiny speck in the blue ocean, at eight square miles a fraction the size of its famous neighbors, Koh Samui and Koh Phangan. It has three villages, a surprising number of hide-away resorts, and the largest concentration of dive shops I’ve ever seen. I was there for the diving, and Dan, an indifferent swimmer at this point, was there for cheap beer. Or so we thought. The three days we’d initially decided to stay on Koh Tao stretched to seven once my divemaster convinced Dan to sign on for a scuba course. We spent the mornings underwater, checking out clownfish and coral and avoiding the island’s strangely aggressive triggerfish. Afternoons we read or walked the sandy lanes that counted as “roads.” Evenings, we met new friends and, yes, drank cheap beer. By the end of six days, the seed of a radical idea was blossoming. We left, but Koh Tao stayed with us: Palm trees. Tropical reefs. Friendly people. We continued on our Southeast Asia backpacker’s circuit. Cambodia. Malaysia. Australia for the holidays. India. Vietnam. Months passed, and we saw amazing, incredible, life-changing things. And we still kept talking about how we could get back to tiny Koh Tao. So we did. We signed up for divemaster courses, found a bungalow with a pet monkey living in a tree outside, and spent five months admiring the way the water shone in Thai sunlight—both above and below the surface.
Image courtesy pelkaphoto
The diving industry on Koh Tao sprang up in the 1990s. Before then, it was mostly uninhabited, with just a few houses where fishermen would overnight. In that relatively short amount of time since then, it’s grown and developed and yet still retained that “deserted island” feel. The inhabitants of the island are castaways themselves. Foreign dive professionals from a hundred countries staff the technical side of the resorts and dive shops while Burmese and Nepalese migrants mind the shops and cook and clean in the restaurants and hotels. Tourists arrive from everywhere. Even the Thai population is adrift here—it’s no-one’s home, and because of that it’s as free and easy a place to be as I have ever been. Living on a small island is not for everyone, however. Water shortages, power outages. Cash shortages if weather keeps the ferry from running and the banks from bringing more change. Jokes about “island time” are not really jokes, just a reflection of how perceptions of urgency are diluted by the sea that surrounds us. Bad weather is the bogeyman. If the ferry isn’t running, you might not make your flight in Bangkok next week. Emergencies are dealt with as swiftly as possible—but may require help from another island, or the mainland, an hour or more away. And, like in many enclaves of expatriates and long-term travelers, there are some who come and never leave—but say they’d like to. Anyone who’s spent some time on “The Rock”—as Koh Tao is affectionately called—can name-drop two, three or a dozen people who have stayed over the time they should have. People who sit in perfect paradise and only notice the mosquitoes. Some of these became inspiration for characters I’d write into a mystery novel manuscript some months later.
Scuba self-portrait.
Water gets in my mask when I laugh.